Dots-on-Plots: A Web Application to Analyze Stress-Strain Curves From Tensile Tests of Soft Tissue

The calculation of tensile mechanical properties from stress-strain curves is a fundamental step in characterizing material behavior, yet no standardized method exists to perform these calculations for soft tissue. To address this deficiency, we developed a free web application called Dots-on-Plots2...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of biomechanical engineering Vol. 145; no. 2
Main Authors Nesbitt, Derek Q, Nelson, Miranda L, Shannon, Kyle S, Lujan, Trevor J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.02.2023
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Summary:The calculation of tensile mechanical properties from stress-strain curves is a fundamental step in characterizing material behavior, yet no standardized method exists to perform these calculations for soft tissue. To address this deficiency, we developed a free web application called Dots-on-Plots2 that fully automates the calculation of tensile mechanical properties from stress-strain curves. The analyzed mechanical properties include the strength, strain, and energy at four points of interest (transition, yield, ultimate, and rupture), and the linear modulus. Users of Dots-on-Plots can upload multiple files, view and download results, and adjust threshold settings. This study determined a threshold setting that minimized error when calculating the transition point, where the stress-strain curve "transitions" from a nonlinear "toe" region to a linear region. Using the optimal threshold (2% stress deviation from a linear region fit), Dots-on-Plots calculated the transition strains from twenty tensile experiments of human meniscus to be 0.049 ± 0.007, which nearly matched the known transition strain values of 0.050 ± 0.006 (determined using finite element parameter optimization). The sensitivity of the calculated transition strain to the shape of various stress-strain curves was analyzed using sets of model-generated synthetic data. This free web application offers a convenient and reliable tool to systematically enhance the speed, transparency, and consistency of mechanical analysis across biomedical research groups.
ISSN:1528-8951
DOI:10.1115/1.4055593