A geometrical model of skeletal muscle

A multi-scale and multi-physics geometrical model of skeletal muscle is presented. Therein, the excitation-contraction path-way is described by a biophysical cell model of systems biology; the propagation of action potentials along individual muscle fibres is represented by means of the monodomain equation; a continuum-mechanical description of the mechanical behaviour of the entire muscle is employed that relies on an additive split of the second Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor. Opposed to previous models, the multi-physics problem is solved simultaneously using a staggered solution scheme that allows for a multi-directional coupling between the different physical phenomena, and a parallel implementation is used. c © 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim