This paper introduces a new method, termed Twice Cutting, for obtaining the zero-stress states of cartilage and muscle of trachea. The method applied cuts at the two junc- tions of tracheal cartilage and muscle perpendicular to the tangent lines of cartilage at its tips. The cartilaginous and muscular opening angles are defined for the first time in Twice Cutting methods. Based on the analysis of cartilaginous and muscular geometric information in no-load and zero-stress states, it is found that there are compressive and tensile residual strains in the inner and outer walls of the cartilage respectively. Residual strains at the muscular inner wall of tracheal rings near bifurcation are negative, whereas those of other rings are positive, and re- sidual strains at outer wall of all rings are positive. This phenomenon of tracheal muscle residual strains is different from those of vessel etc. The results also show that the absolute values of cartilaginous strains are considerably smaller than that of muscular ones, with the ratio being around 0.05. The values of all the tracheal parameters, including residual strains and opening angles, are reducing with the increasing value of tracheal rings’ position. So the consequences obtained in this paper not only indicate that the trachea is a non-uniform tissue along the circumferential and axial directions, but also reveal the differences between the trachea and other living tissues, such as vessel, esophagus. This is a basic research for further work, such as determining stress in trachea, to which the cartilaginous and muscular zero-stress states should be referred.
TENG Zhongzhao1, LIU Zhaorong1, LIN Yihan1, WANG Yiqin2, LI Fufeng2 & GONG Keqin1 1. Department of Mechanics & Engineering Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
The no-load state and zero-stress state of the normal rat trachea were analyzed. It was found that there exist compressive residual strains in the inner wall region of the rat trachea and tensile residual strains in the outer wall region. The fact that the opening angle of the rat trachea cut at the cartilaginous region is significantly larger than that cut at the muscular portion shows that residual strains exist mainly in the muscular region in the rat trachea. It was also indicated that the opening angles and residual strains expressed by cutting at the muscular portion are basically identical along longitudinal location and those expressed by cutting in the cartilaginous region tend to increase in the longitudinal direction in the normal rat, and that there exists quantitatively positive correlation between the opening angles and residual strains in rat trachea. The results will help to further understand the opening angles and residual strains in the trachea and study tracheal remodeling in response to mechanical environment.
