The in-vivo mechanical response of tissue during loading is simulated using geometrically accurate finite element (FE) models. However, FE models often do not account for the anisotropic elastic material behaviour of tissue. In soft biological tissue, there is a correlation between internal microscopic structure and macroscopic mechanical properties. By exploiting novel techniques the anisotropic orientation and nature of tissue can be incorporated into non-linear viscoelastic material models for implementation in FE analysis to more accurately describe the mechanical response of tissue in silica.
