Enabling Technologies for Advanced Soft Tissue Modeling

摘要

This report describes a 5-year research program to develop instrumentation, experimental protocols, mathematical models and tools, and validation techniques to determine and describe the biomechanical behavior of living tissues. The particular focus has been the study of non-load-bearing internal organs that have not been addressed significantly in the literature. These results will contribute to developing realistic simulation tools for medical training and medical device and procedure development. The report summarizes the results of the final year of the project, including completion of a physics-based tissue model and an algorithm to determine the values of characteristic parameters from experimental data; integration of a three- dimensional ultrasound scanning system with the authors' indentation instrumentation and algorithms to accurately determine tissue motion; and work to develop new, minimally invasive instruments that would have applications for human use. The report then reviews the work completed over the full course of the program.