A Parametric Study and Simulations in Quantifying Human Skin Hyperelastic Parameters

Abstract

Skin deformation behaviour is complex, that exhibits similarly to an anisotropic, non-homogenous and viscoelastic material. Nevertheless, the understanding of skin characteristics and behaviour is important in many applications. This study attempts to investigate and simulate skin deformation under tensile loading using the integration of experimental-computational approaches. An experimental procedure has been conducted to measure skin deformation using motion capture system. Based on the information and data obtained from the measurement, finite element models of skin are developed using ABAQUS to mimic the experimental procedure. In this study, skin is modeled as an isotropic, incompressible and hyperelastic membrane that underwent large deformation. A systematic parametric study is constructed to perform finite element simulations using various mesh size and element types. The results obtained from the simulations are compared to the experimental and the best match curve constitutes skin material parameters. The final parameter shows that the best Ogden's values were at 10 Pa and 110 for Ogden's coefficient and exponent respectively. It can be concluded that the integration of experiment and numerical approaches has successfully quantified the skin properties.