Mechanochemical aspects of skin wound healing in microgravity. (March 2019) - Swain, Digendranath
Highlights: A novel biomechanical-chemical model to understand wound healing in microgravity. Incorporation of nutrient chemistry and microgravity effects in a biomechanical growth model. Generation of residual stress, nutrient concentration distribution, and wrinkling. A novel free energy density with couples elasticity, chemical energy, and microgravity. Abstract: A coupled biomechanical-chemical growth model is proposed to study regeneration of residual stresses and appearance of wrinkling during cutaneous wound healing in a microgravity environment. A novel free energy density is introduced which couples mechanics, nutrient chemistry, and microgravity, assuming both skin and wound to be nonlinear elastic membranes. A simple boundary-value-problem is formulated and solved to obtain quantitative results on effects due to short-term and long-term microgravity exposure on stress generation and wrinkle formation, while emphasizing the interplay between elasticity, nutrient concentration, and microgravity.