The mechanics of soft tissues, layered for every level.
Created by Anastasia Nasopoulou, a Research Fellow in Biomedical Engineering with over 15 years of experience in these topics. This course focuses on clarifying the parts that create the most confusion for students — so a second-year BEng can follow the intuition while an MEng or PhD student can dive into the same chapter at full constitutive depth.
- 12
- chapters
- 3
- learning levels
- 5
- modules
- ∞
- re-stretches
Finite-strain, properly
Deformation gradient, invariants, push-forwards — taught with the geometric picture, then the index notation.
Constitutive depth
From neo-Hookean to Holzapfel–Gasser–Ogden and beyond. Strain-energy functions you can fit to real data.
Interactive intuition
Drag a slider, watch the J-curve appear. Stress-stretch playgrounds in every relevant chapter.
Three modules, nine chapters
Prerequisites
Tensor algebra & analysis recap and a refresher on linear elasticity — the small-strain world we will leave behind.
Foundations
Tissues as continua, motivation, and the language of finite deformation.
Constitutive Modelling
Strain-energy functions for incompressible, anisotropic, fibre-reinforced tissues.
Advanced Topics
Damage, growth, mixture theory and experimental identification.
One course, three reading paths
Build intuition for why tissues stiffen, creep and depend on orientation. Light tensor algebra; geometric reasoning first.
Derive strain-energy functions, fit parameters to uniaxial/biaxial data, and reason about model selection.
Anisotropic dispersion, damage, growth & remodelling, mixture theory and the current literature frontier.