Biomechanics: Mechanical Properties of Living Tissues, 2nd ed.

Abstract

This book is the second edition of the first volume in a series of three volumes by Y. C. Fung on biomechanics. The first edition was published in 1981. The second volume in the series was Biodynamics: Circulation (1984) and the third was Biomechanics: Motion, Flow, Stress, and Growth (1990). In these three books Professor Fung describes the constitutive behavior of biological tissues, the functional mechanics of the body's organs and related engineering problems. The series of three volumes summarizes the application of an enormously wide spectrum of mechanics and thermodynamics to physiology and the engineering of biologically related problems. The mechanics applied includes rigid-body mechanics, mechanical vibration theory, viscous and perfect fluid theory, linear and nonlinear elasticity and viscoelasticity, wave propagation in fluid and solid media, multiphase mixture theory, chemical thermodynamics, and numerous subtopics of mechanics. The problems addressed cover the spectrum from birds flying and fish swimming to oxygen transport, human impact tolerance, cell behavior, and the engineering of activities at the cellular level. The reviews of the first edition of this volume were "rave" reviews. In this journal (Journal of Applied Mechanics, 1982, Vol. 49, p. 464) Richard Skalak wrote that "Professor Fung is one of the few people who has kept up with the development of biomechanics on so many different fronts in the last decade and could single-handedly write this book for us." James McElhaney closed his review (Medical Physics, Vol. 9, 1982) with "For those of you interested in analysis of the mechanical properties of biologically derived tissues, this book is a must buy. Professor Fung has organized, consolidated, and unified this difficult field in an elegant and erudite textbook." In the dozen years between the first and second edition of this book Professor Fung has both widened and deepened his knowledge of the field of biomechanics and that enhanced vision is reflected in this new edition. The accolades appropriate for the first edition should be increased by 1/3 and applied to the second edition, for the second edition is 4/3 times the length of the first edition. This review is focused on the new 135 pages and the rewriting of the original 433 pages as the excellent and positive reviews of James McElhaney and Richard Skalak more than adequately covered the 1st edition.

Strain rate dependent properties of younger human cervical spine ligaments

“…When investigating motion at an atomic level, quantum, relativistic and statistical mechanics must be used, however, Newton's laws of motion are sufficient when investigating movement at the tissue and organ level (Fung, 1993).…”

“…The basic structural building block for all biological tissues in animals is collagen (Fung, 1993). It is the main connective tissue protein and the most abundant, giving tissues mechanical strength and integrity, and making up 25% to 35% of the body's overall protein content (Di LulloDagger et al, 2002).…”

“…Y.C. Fung made the analogy that the importance of the role of collagen to humans, is equivalent to role of steel to human civilization (Fung, 1993). Like steel, there are many different kinds of collagen structures, based on how the strands of collagen are wound together.…”

“…Many collagen molecules form together in a string into what is known as a fibril, and bundles of fibrils group together to form fibers (Fung, 1993). Depending on the tissue, collagen fibers align differently.…”

“…Additional testing performed under identical testing conditions as the current study would allow for pooling of the results effectively increasing the sample size. (Fung, 1993;Viidik, 1973) .... 54 Table 4-6: Craniovertebral ligament property summary Pintar, 1986) ......... 59 Table 4-7: Alar, transverse ligament properties at quasi-static and high rates (Shim et al, 2005) ...... 60 Table 4-8: Alar and transverse ligament property comparison Shim et al, 2005) . …”