Methyl cellulose (MC) is a unique material that displays a liquid-solid phase transition when heated. Methyl cellulose is a biocompatible material and it is FDA approved. The manufacturing process of the gel is cheap and it is widely used in the bio-engineering field as well as a structural material for 3D bioprinting, drug delivery system etc.
In this work, the static mechanical behavior of solid MC was first characterized and modeled. Compression tests of MC, with different compositions and temperatures were performed. Various hyperelastic models, with different levels of complexity were examined. Since tension experiments of MC are challenging, the predicted behavior of each model was compared qualitatively to other hydrogels tension curves.
