Investigating Stress-relaxation and Failure Responses in the Trachea

The biomechanical properties of the trachea directly affect the airflow and contribute to the biological function of the respiratory system. Understanding these properties is critical to understanding the injury mechanism in this tissue. This protocol describes an experimental approach to study the stress-relaxation behavior of porcine trachea that were pre-stretched to 0% or 10% strain for 300 s, followed by mechanical tensile loading until failure. This study provides details of the experimental design, data acquisition, analyses, and preliminary results from the porcine tracheae biomechanical testing. Using the detailed steps provided in this protocol and the data analysis MATLAB code, future studies can investigate the time-dependent viscoelastic behavior of trachea tissue, which is critical to understanding its biomechanical responses during physiological, pathological, and traumatic conditions. Furthermore, in-depth studies of the biomechanical behavior of the trachea will critically aid in improving the design of related medical devices such as endotracheal implants that are widely used during surgeries.