MechAnalyser: a semi-automatic software for the analysis of biomechanical properties of biological materials

Hinrichs T, Sonter K, Ritter P, Bauer J, Damian-Buda AI, Davern JW, Shmuely I, Westlake M, Weekes A, Cavelier S, Dean MN, Collin SP, Friedrich O, Hutmacher DW, Klein TJ, Camilieri-Asch V (2026)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2026

Journal

Results in Engineering Elsevier

Book Volume: 30

Article Number: 111131

DOI: 10.1016/j.rineng.2026.111131

Abstract

Mechanical testing is widely used to characterise biological and engineered materials. However, data analysis is time-consuming and a lack of standardisation introduces user-dependent variability and limits reproducibility and comparability across laboratories. To address this, we developed MechAnalyser , a standalone software application that provides automated analysis of mechanical testing data and includes visual and interactive quality control and extensibility for future experiment types. MechAnalyser currently quantifies Young’s modulus, failure properties, time constant of decay (τ), toughness, and energy dissipation. Accuracy and efficiency were evaluated in a comparison experiment where seven independent users analysed heterogeneous compression to failure, stress relaxation, and micro-indentation datasets using both their own manual workflows and MechAnalyser . Users analysed Young’s modulus and τ while recording the dataset preparation and analysis times. Automated analysis reproduced manual results with high accuracy across a wide mechanical range (e.g., Young’s modulus adj. R2 = 0.9998 for compression to failure and 0.974 for indentation; τ adj. R2 from 0.797 to 0.991), while significantly reducing preparation (up to 3.5x) and analysis time (up to 15x) for all users and decreasing inter-user variability. The integrated transcoder further enabled consistent analysis of datasets acquired from different instruments and formats. These results demonstrate that MechAnalyser provides a robust, time-efficient, and reproducible approach to mechanical data analysis and thus contributes towards standardising mechanical analysis workflows for biomaterials.

Authors with CRIS profile

Andrada-Ioana Damian-Buda Lehrstuhl für Werkstoffwissenschaften (Biomaterialien)

Involved external institutions

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) AU Australia (AU) Tritium Charging AU Australia (AU) Max Planck Queensland Centre (MPQC) AU Australia (AU) City University of Hong Kong (CityU) CN China (CN)

How to cite

APA:

Hinrichs, T., Sonter, K., Ritter, P., Bauer, J., Damian-Buda, A.-I., Davern, J.W.,... Camilieri-Asch, V. (2026). MechAnalyser: a semi-automatic software for the analysis of biomechanical properties of biological materials. Results in Engineering, 30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2026.111131

MLA:

Hinrichs, T., et al. "MechAnalyser: a semi-automatic software for the analysis of biomechanical properties of biological materials." Results in Engineering 30 (2026).

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