A Microstructural Study of Load Distribution in Cartilage: A Comparison of Stress Relaxation versus Creep Loading

Figure 6

A more detailed view of an SR7 group sample, from the directly loaded region to the bulge region. (a) The white line indicates the span of the region shown at higher magnification in (b). Shear bands are visible as patterns of oblique-crisscross lines. The boxed region (dashed line) in (b) is greatly enlarged in (c) to show the structure of the shear bands. The wave feature represents an in-phase fibrillar compression (crimp) with the arrows indicating the overall direction of this crimp, forming part of the crisscross pattern visible at the larger scale view. DIC imaging.