Experimental Study of a Biomechanical Behaviour of Rat Patellar Tendon

Tendon is important structure of the human body, since it can sustain tensile loading. The primary function of this tissue is to stabilize the joints they attached to it during daily activities. As well as, tendon has viscoelastic properties that can determine their response to loading and restrict the potential of injuries. One of the major points that this paper works with is the study of the biomechanical behaviour of tendon in response to tensile loading to describe their biological behaviour. Also, conclude the mathematical expression that may illustrate the tendon behaviour. All of the experiments were made in Physiology laboratories / Medical College/ Al- Nahrain University on ten rats "Rattus Norvegicus" of [108- 360] gm weight for in- vitro tensile test. So that 20 specimens were dissected from the rat knees, for the patellar tendons which always hydrated to prevent the tissue dryness. The results of the study, shows the behaviour of the tendon in response to tensile loading with two techniques; the dead loads technique and the continuous loads technique. The stress- strain relationships were also evaluated, as well as, the modified superposition theory was applied at different strain levels to the patellar tendon. The obtained results show that the modified superposition theory gives good results that are partly similar to the experimental results. Also, the tendon shows longer initial pattern than that for the ligament due to the presence of higher elastin content in the tendon than in the ligament.