Material properties of soft-tissue samples are often derived through uniaxial tensile testing. For engineering materials, testing parameters (e.g., sample geometries and clamping conditions) are described by international standards; for biological tissues, such standards do not exist. To investigate what testing parameters have been reported for tensile testing of human soft-tissue samples, a systematic review of the literature was performed using PRISMA guidelines. Soft tissues are described as anisotropic and/or hyperelastic. Thus, we explored how the retrieved parameters compared against standards for engineering materials of similar characteristics. All research articles published in English, with an Abstract, and before 1 January 2023 were retrieved from databases of PubMed, Web of Science, and BASE. After screening of articles based on search terms and exclusion criteria, a total 1,096 articles were assessed for eligibility, from which 361 studies were retrieved and included in this review. We found that a non-tapered shape is most common (209 of 361), followed by a tapered sample shape (92 of 361). However, clamping conditions varied and were underreported (156 of 361). As a preliminary attempt to explore how the retrieved parameters might influence the stress distribution under tensile loading, a pilot study was performed using finite element analysis (FEA) and constitutive modeling for a clamped sample of little or no fiber dispersion. The preliminary FE simulation results might suggest the hypothesis that different sample geometries could have a profound influence on the stress-distribution under tensile loading. However, no conclusions can be drawn from these simulations, and future studies should involve exploring different sample geometries under different computational models and sample parameters (such as fiber dispersion and clamping effects). Taken together, reporting and choice of testing parameters remain as challenges, and as such, recommendations towards standard reporting of uniaxial tensile testing parameters for human soft tissues are proposed.

中文翻译：

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形状重要还是大小重要？走向人体软组织拉伸测试参数的标准报告：系统回顾和有限元分析

软组织样品的材料特性通常通过单轴拉伸测试得出。对于工程材料，测试参数（例如样品几何形状和夹紧条件）由国际标准描述；对于生物组织来说，这样的标准并不存在。为了调查已报告的人体软组织样本拉伸测试的测试参数，使用 PRISMA 指南对文献进行了系统回顾。软组织被描述为各向异性和/或超弹性的。因此，我们探讨了如何将检索到的参数与具有相似特性的工程材料的标准进行比较。 2023 年 1 月 1 日之前以英文发表的所有带摘要的研究文章均从以下数据库中检索PubMed、Web of Science 和 BASE。根据检索词和排除标准对文章进行筛选后，共评估了 1,096 篇文章的资格，从中检索到 361 篇研究并纳入本次综述。我们发现非锥形形状最常见（361 个中的 209 个），其次是锥形样本形状（361 个中的 92 个）。然而，夹紧条件各不相同，且报告不足（361 项中的 156 项）。作为探索检索到的参数如何影响拉伸载荷下的应力分布的初步尝试，我们使用有限元分析 (FEA) 和本构模型对纤维色散很少或没有的夹紧样品进行了初步研究。初步的有限元模拟结果可能表明这样的假设：不同的样品几何形状可能对拉伸载荷下的应力分布产生深远的影响。然而，从这些模拟中无法得出任何结论，未来的研究应该涉及在不同的计算模型和样本参数（例如纤维色散和夹紧效应）下探索不同的样本几何形状。总而言之，测试参数的报告和选择仍然是挑战，因此，提出了人体软组织单轴拉伸测试参数标准报告的建议。