Résumé
Auxetic materials have a negative Poisson’s ratio: when stretched they becomethicker perpendicularly to the loading direction, and when compressed they becomethinner perpendicularly to the loading direction. The presentation is firstly aimed atproviding a brief literature review on auxetic behavior in biological tissues.Current knowledge about the causes of auxetic behavior in soft tissues and themechanical models which can reproduce it will be emphasized. Then, a fibrousstructure which includes both fibre corrugation and cross linking will be introduced. Itwill be shown that this microstructure leads to an auxetic behavior and that thecharacteristics of this fibrous structure can be considered as at least one of the causesof auxetism. Finally, some perspectives for further research will be proposed.