Fig. 7.

Evolution of correlation lengths with the deformation of cervical FCLs. (a) Correlation length in the vertical direction at 3 mm displacement (1.55 stretch ratio on average) is significantly higher than both the vertical correlation length in the prestressed resting configuration (*p < 0.050) and horizontal correlation length of the deformed sample at same strain (#p < 0.006). Error bars indicate standard deviations. (b) Correlation length in the horizontal direction shows high sample-to-sample variability and no definite trend as the applied strain increases, whereas (c) vertical correlation length of all samples tends to increase with increasing macroscopic strain.