The Study of Mechanical Properties on Soft Tissue of Human Forearm In Vivo

Abstract

The objective of this study is to characterize the mechanical behavior of human forearm soft tissue. We present a method combined traditional indentation test with MRI technique to in vivo quantify its material properties in three consecutive steps. First, a MRI scan based three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model of the skin-fat-muscle-bone complex was developed for further FE analysis, then, the hyperelastic parameters of subcutaneous and muscle layer were determined by static indentations, and the FE solution showed a good agreement with the corresponding experimental data. Finally, a series of indentations at different loading rates were carried out to study the viscoelastic response of the forearm, which was simulated using the stress relaxation function, but the simulation results didn't actually reflect the properties of real soft tissue due to the material model we assigned.