AIM: To measure the time-dependent (viscoelastic)behavior in the change of the small intestinal opening angle and to test how well the behavior could be described by the Kelvin model for a standard linear solid.METHODS: Segments from the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum were harvested from 10 female Wistar rats and the luminal diameter, wall thickness, and opening angleover time (θ(t)) were measured from rings cut from thesesegments.RESULTS: Morphometric variations were found along thesmall intestine with an increase in luminal area and adecrease in wall thickness from the duodenum to theileum. The opening angle obtained after 60 min washighest in the duodenum (220.8±12.9°) and decreasedalong the length of the intestine to 143.9±8.9° in the jejunum and 151.4±9.4° in the ileum. The change ofopening angle as a function of time, fitted well to theKelvin model using the equation θ(t)/θo = [1-ηexp (-λt)]after the ring was cut. The computed creep rate λ did notdiffer between the segments. Compared to constantcalculated from pig aorta and coronary artery, it showedthat α agreed well (within 5%), η was three times largerthan that for vascular tissue, and λ ranged ±40% from the value of the pig coronary artery and was a third of the value of pig aorta.CONCLUSION: The change of opening angle over timefor all the small intestine segments fits well to the standardlinear spring-dashpot model. This viscoelastic constantof the rat small intestine is fairly homogenous along itslength. The data obtained from this study add to a baseset of biomechanical data on the small intestine andprovide a reference state for comparison to other tissues,diseased intestinal tissue or intestinal tissue exposed todrugs or chemicals.