Significance
Regenerative medicine has the potential to fully restore diseased tissues or entire organs with engineered tissues. Needled-nonwoven scaffolds can be employed to serve as the support for their growth. However, there is a lack of understanding of the mechanics of these materials and their interactions with the forming tissues. We developed a mathematical model for these scaffold-tissue composites to quantify the mechanical properties of the forming tissues. Firstly, these measurements are pivotal to achieve functional requirements for tissue engineering implants; however, the theoretical development yielded critical insight into particular mechanisms and behaviors of these scaffolds that were not possible to conjecture without the insight given by modeling, let alone describe or foresee a priori.
Statement of significance
Regenerative medicine has the potential to fully restore diseased tissues or entire organs with engineered tissues. Needled-nonwoven scaffolds can be employed to serve as the support for their growth. However, there is a lack of understanding of the mechanics of these materials and their interactions with the forming tissues. We developed a mathematical model for these scaffold-tissue composites to quantify the mechanical properties of the forming tissues. Firstly, these measurements are pivotal to achieve functional requirements for tissue engineering implants; however, the theoretical development yielded critical insight into particular mechanisms and behaviors of these scaffolds that were not possible to conjecture without the insight given by modeling, let alone describe or foresee a priori.