Figure 2 –

(a) Image of the biaxial mechanical testing system (BioTester), (b) image of the mounted tissue, with labelled components of the testing system, (c) schematics of the valve leaflet specimen before and after prescribed loading, and (d) illustration of the force-controlled protocols (with a loading rate of 4.42 N/min) employed in both the baseline and temperature-controlled tests (T: maximum applied load, black solid line: tension in the circumferential direction, and red dashed line: tension in the radial direction).