Higher-order Constitutive Relationship for Microtubules Based on the Higher-order Cauchy-Born Rule

This paper presents a higher-order constitutive model for microtubules that is established based on the higher-order Cauchy-Born rule. A microtubule is viewed as being formed by rolling up its planar encounter into the tubular shape. The representative cell is chosen as an unit of two pairs of tubulin momoners, and the distance vector is calculated using the higher-order Caucgy-Born rule. With the appropriate longitudinal and lateral interactive potentials, the strain energy density is calculated by deviding the cell's energy by its spacial volume. In the theoretical scheme of the higher-order congtinuum theory, the elastic property of microtubule is calculated. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Kunming University of Science and Technology