Collagen fibril tensile response described by a nonlinear Maxwell model

Collagen fibrils are the basic structural building blocks that provide mechanical properties such as stiffness, toughness, and strength to tissues from the nano- to the macroscale. Collagen fibrils are highly hydrated and transient deformation mechanisms contribute to their mechanical behavior. One approach to describe and quantify the apparent viscoelastic behavior of collagen fibrils is to find rheological models and fit the resulting empirical equations to experimental data. In this study, we consider a nonlinear rheological Maxwell model for this purpose. The model was fitted to tensile stress-time data from experiments conducted in a previous study on hydrated and partially dehydrated individual collagen fibrils via AFM. The derivative tensile modulus, estimated from the empirical equation, increased for decreasing hydration of the collagen fibril. The viscosity is only marginally affected by hydration but shows a dependency with strain rate, suggesting thixotropic behavior for low strain rates.