Abstract
This paper describes a study on the mechanical properties of ligament of a rabbit. To investigate a biomechanical feature of spine, it is need to measure the mechanical properties of component parts of spine such as ligament, and the properties are used for the numerical simulation. But it is difficult to measure properties of component parts of spine accurately because of its minuteness and low rigidity, and change of the properties as time pass. In this study, we showed the effect of the strain rate on the mechanical properties of apical ligament by the tensile tests using specimens of white rabbits' cadaveric spines. Furthermore, we computed parameters for the numerical simulation from this data.
