Figure 3

Intracellular and extracellular displacement functions. The product of the displacement functions u and w with the extracellular shear modulus G and the square of the radial position coordinate r are plotted as a function of the extracellular shear modulus G divided by the spring coupling constant K. Active tension is T ₀ = 100 N/m ² is maintained (Chen & Varghese 2010) and the ratio of the intracellular Young’s modulus μ to the extracellular shear modulus is given as μ/G = 3. Experimental data from canine hearts (Linke et al. 1994) indicates displacements on the order of a few millimeters; taken with the analysis presented here, this would suggest a very large value of K, on the order of 10⁹ or 10¹⁰ N/m ².