Anisotropic evolution of viscous strain in soft biological materials

We propose a model for anisotropic viscoelastic biological materials that can handle large deformations, based on the kinematic assumption that the reinforcing fibre structure undergoes affine deformation with the underlying matrix. A generalized orientation tensor approach is used to account for the dispersion of the fibres. Moreover, we consider a strain energy function that features both an elastic and an overstress component, corresponding to distinct natural states. As a consequence of this choice, the remodelled state is not necessarily stress-free, and the material does not completely relax the stress. Notably, we consider that viscous remodelling also alters the fibre distribution, leading to a dependence of the overstress energy on the remodelled orientation tensor. An anisotropic evolution equation for the viscous strain is then derived, which has five distinct characteristic times if a single fibre family is considered and requires no additional assumptions on the viscous spin. To implement the model, we prove that the evolution of the viscous strain can be recast in a variational form by an Onsager variational principle. Finally, we discuss the algorithm used for the simulations and show numerical examples that serve as benchmark test cases for viscoelastic materials.