Understanding Muscle Mechanics Using a Structural FEA Skeletal Muscle Model to Investigate Muscle Actuation and Dysfunction

It is commonly believed that muscle contraction is the result of the actin-myosin however, more than a simple collection of contracting muscle fibres. Muscles are interplay that induces a pulling force on the muscle tendons. Muscles are, actually a honeycomb network of connective tissue membranes i.e. thin muscle fasciae that all converge to muscle tendons. Each honeycomb cavity contains a filiform muscle cell. A change in cell shape (volume or diameter) due to physiological contraction would, therefore, attempt to expand the honeycomb walls which, by their stiff nature, would transfer traction forces to tendons at both extremities. Such a contractile structural system has been used in the past for developing pneumatic artificial muscles of McKibben type.