Hydrogels are a cross-linked network of polymer swollen with a liquid, and are promising replacements for diseased or damaged load bearing tissues such as articular cartilage [1]. Recently, a linear biphasic model, developed originally for cartilage [2], has been applied to characterize the mechanical behavior of hydrogels [3, 4]. However, the linear elastic assumption for the solid phase ignores the intrinsic viscoelasticity of the polymer network [3, 4]. Some attempts have been made in the literature to simulate hydrogels with a biphasic viscoelastic model using a self-developed finite element code [5]. This study is aimed at simulating hydrogels with a biphasic viscoelastic model and investigating an inverse finite element (FE) technique to identify material parameters of hydrogels via combined creep testing and FE modeling. Creep testing of hydrogels is simulated in the commercial software ABAQUS, which makes this approach easy to adapt to other test geometries. Material parameters are identified by fitting the FE results to the experimental results using an optimization method.

This content is only available via PDF.
You do not currently have access to this content.