Technique for estimating fracture resistance of cultured neocartilage

Tensile tests on an artificial tissue of cultured neocartilage are described with a view to obtaining objective criteria for the onset of fracture and to estimating the tissue fracture resistance. The energy dissipation and compliance of the hyperelastic, hysteretic load-displacement responses exhibit great sensitivity to crack propagation during loading. A simple scheme is presented for deconvoluting the energy dissipated by cracking from an overall hysteresis loop and thus estimating the fracture resistance. The results suggest that the apparent fracture resistance of cultured neocartilage is determined by events localized to the crack and may exhibit a transient increase on initial crack extension.