Viscoelastic properties of human tympanic membrane.
Cheng,T; Dai,C; Gan,RZ
Abstract The tympanic membrane or eardrum of human ear transfers sound waves intomechanical vibration from the external ear canal into the middle ear and cochlea. Mechanicalproperties of the tympanic membrane (TM) play an important role in sound transmission through theear. Although limited resources about linear elastic properties of the TM are available inliterature, there is a lack of measurement or modeling of viscoelastic properties of the TM at lowstress levels. In this study, the uniaxial tensile, stress relaxation, and failure tests wereconducted on fresh human cadaver TM specimens to explore mechanical properties of the TM. Theexperimental results were analyzed using the hyperelastic Ogden model and digital image correlationmethod. The constitutive equation and non-linear elastic properties of the TM were presented byfunctions of the stress and strain at the stress range from 0 to 1 MPa. Viscoelastic properties ofthe TM were described by the stress relaxation function and hysteresis. The results show that theuniaxial tensile test with the aid of digital image correlation analysis is a reliable and usefulapproach for measuring mechanical properties of ear tissues. The data presented in this papercontribute to ear biomechanics in both experimental measurement and theoretical analysis of eartissues.
Keywords Models, Biological; Tympanic Membrane
Annals of Biomedical Engineering
0090-6964, Volume 35, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 3-314
