抄録
A three-dimensional transversely isotropic constitutive model of cardiac muscle is formulated by taking account of the mechanism of excitation-contraction coupling. For this purpose, stress in cardiac muscle is assumed to be the sum of passive and active parts. The passive part is represented by a nonlinear elastic material expressed by a strain energy density function of exponential type. The active part, on the other hand, is modeled by a series of evolution equations that represents the process of excitation-contraction coupling. Comparison of simulation results with experimental results in the literature shows that this model can describe the behavior of isotonic contraction as well as isometric contraction. The model can also represent inotropic effects because it includes the evolution equations describing the change in the concentration of intracellular calcium ions. The model can be incorporated into finite element codes in order to simulate a left ventricle.