Figure 4.

Elastic modulus in MPa of skin versus angle in degrees measured at a strain of 5% in vivo using VOCT. The angle at zero degrees is defined arbitrarily as the angle where the maximum elastic modulus occurs. The moduli measured at 0° and 67.5° are significantly higher than the moduli at all other angles at 5% strain (see Table 2). While under physiologic conditions the collagen fibers in skin are more randomly oriented within the plane of the skin, under external loads the fibers appear to orient at 0° and 67.5°.