Wednesday  |  Conference Center B  |  09:20 AM–09:40 AM

#13552, Investigating Hyper-viscoelasticity of Soft Membrane Materials Subjected to Finite Static Deformation Using Optical Coherence Elastography

Biological tissues exhibit viscoelastic behavior with time-dependent deformation when they are subjected to dynamic loads. The viscoelastic behavior mediates important physiological responses, for example, in corneal tissue, when subjected to growing intraocular pressure that precedes the development of glaucoma eye diseases. Understanding the viscoelastic properties of soft materials like corneal tissue and their dependence on finite static deformations is critical for accurately diagnosing glaucoma. This work presents an experimental approach that facilitates nondestructive characterization of viscoelastic properties of soft materials subjected to uniaxial tension. The measurement approach relies on the optical coherence elastography (OCE) method. The speed and attenuation of transverse guided and interfacial elastic waves in a sample are locally measured with an optical coherence tomographic interferometer. Furthermore, we employ hyper-viscoelastic modeling combined with small amplitude elastodynamic theory to characterize the stretch dependent viscoelastic properties in soft materials at frequencies in the kHz range.

Ziwei Wang   Northwestern University
Victor Lefevre   Northwestern University
Oluwaseyi Balogun   Northwestern University