J-shaped stress-strain diagram of collagen fibers: Frame tension of triangulated surfaces with fixed boundaries

Abstract: We present Monte Carlo data of the stress-strain diagrams obtained using two different triangulated surface models. The first is the canonical surface model of Helfrich and Polyakov (HP), and the second is a Finsler geometry (FG) model. The shape of the experimentally observed stress-strain diagram is called J-shaped. Indeed, the diagram has a plateau for the small strain region and becomes linear in the relatively large strain region. Because of this highly non-linear behavior, the J-shaped diagram is far beyond the scope of the ordinary theory of elasticity. Therefore, the mechanism behind the J-shaped diagram still remains to be clarified, although it is commonly believed that the collagen degrees of freedom play an essential role. We find that the FG modeling technique provides a coarse-grained picture for the interaction between the collagen and the bulk material. The role of the directional degrees of freedom of collagen molecules or fibers can be understood in the context of FG modeling. We also discuss the reason for why the J-shaped diagram cannot (can) be explained by the HP (FG) model.