Estimation of Soft Tissue’s Mechanical Properties with Indentation Experiments and Optimization Algorithm

Abstract

A Virtual Reality (VR)-based medical simulation requires accurate organ geometry, fast computation algorithms, and mechanical properties of the soft tissue. However, the material properties’ characterization has not been sufficiently investigated due to the difficulty of testing and modeling the complexities of nonlinearity and time dependency of the soft tissue. Several research groups have performed soft tissue characterization. Ottensmeyer et al. obtained the mechanical properties of porcine abdominal organs [1]. Mazza et al. characterized the material properties of the human uterine cervix [2]. This paper presents the porcine liver’s mechanical properties with indentation experiments and inverse finite element (FE) model parameter estimation algorithm for medical simulations.