The elasto-plastic nano- and microscale compressive behaviour of rehydrated mineralised collagen fibres

Abstract

The multiscale architectural design of bio-based nanostructured materials such as bone enables them to combine unique structure-mechanical properties that surpass classical engineering materials. In biological tissues, water as one of the main components plays an important role in the mechanical interplay, but its influence has not been quantified at the length scale of a mineralised collagen fibre. Here, we combine in situ experiments and a statistical constitutive model to identify the elasto-plastic micro- and nanomechanical fibre behaviour under rehydrated conditions. Micropillar compression and simultaneous synchrotron small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to quantify the interplay between fibre, mineralised collagen fibrils and mineral nanocrystals. Rehydration led to a 65%to 75% decrease of fibre yield stress and compressive strength, and a 70% decrease of stiffness with a3x higher effect on stress than strain values. While in good agreement with bone extracellular matrix, the decrease is 1.5-3x higher compared to micro-indentation and macro-compression. Hydration has a higher influence on mineral than fibril strain while the highest difference to the macroscale was observed comparing mineral and tissue levels. Results suggest that the effect of hydration is strongly mediated by ultrastructural interfaces while corroborating the previously reported water-mediated structuring of bone apatite providing insights towards the mechanical consequences. Results show that the missing reinforcing capacity of surrounding tissue is more pronounced in wet than dry conditions when testing an excised array of fibrils, mainly related to the swelling of fibrils in the matrix. Differences leading to higher compressive strength between mineralised tissues do not seem to depend on the rehydration state while fibril mobilisation follows a similar regime in wet and dry conditions. The lack of kink bands point towards the role of water as an elastic embedding, thus, adapting the way energy is absorbed.