Preservation of tangent modulus of pericardial tissue during cold storage

Abstract

We have performed uniaxial tensile tests with human pericardium in order to identify the effect of a storage time on the passive mechanical response. Mechanical response was modelled using simple Fung´s type form of the strain energy density function, assuming isotropic hyperelastic response. The final stress-stretch curves indicate that primary mechanical response could be hold for a few days post mortem.