Abstract:

Measuring human organs' mechanical properties feeds medical practices. This thesis develops new means to measure in-situ and in-vivo mechanical properties of soft living tissues. Among other methods, aspiration is a standard due to its simplicity: soft tissue is aspirated through a hole while measuring simultaneously the pressure and tissue apex height, usually using a camera and mirror. Such a choice yet induces sterilization and design difficulties for in-vivo applications. In this thesis, measuring directly the aspirated volume enabled to remove any camera and mirror from the measuring probe. This method was firstly validated on known silicone materials. This modification also enabled to change the aspiration aperture diameter at will. This property was used to develop a method to identify the superficial layer thickness and mechanical properties in soft multilayered tissues. Eventually, a model reduction was used to drastically decrease the computation time involved during the inverse identifications of mechanical properties. This is an additional key step toward application during clinical routine.

 

Keywords:

Suction/Aspiration Method; Soft Tissues Characterization; Experimental Mechanics; Biomechanics; Inverse Characterization