The preservation of lens volume implies that the internal human lens material can be assumed to be incompressible and is undergoing elastic deformation. Furthermore, the change in surface area indicates that the capsular bag also undergoes elastic deformation.

Using new geometric information on the shape of the lens that has recently become available, a finite element model has been developed in order to estimate the forces that act on the lens during accommodation for a typical 29-year-old human eye. To investigate the influence of the anterior, posterior and central zonular fibres insertion regions, three models with different configurations were built. All three configurations appeared to be capable of inducing the required accommodative changes in the lens. Based on material properties from the literature, the estimated summed net force for each of the three models was approximately 0.08 N.

Knowledge about geometric properties such as shape and volume and Poisson's ratio of the nucleus can be used in the mechanical and optical modeling of the accommodation process. Therefore, Scheimpflug imaging was used to determine the shape of the human lens nucleus during accommodation in five subjects. To describe the shape of the nucleus, we fitted a parametric model of the cross-sectional geometry to the gradient of the Scheimpflug images using the Hough transform. The geometric model made it possible to estimate the anterior and the posterior central radius, central thickness, equatorial diameter, and cross-sectional area of the nucleus. Assuming that the nucleus is rotationally symmetric, the volume of the nucleus can be estimated by integrating around the circumference. For all five subjects, the results show that during accommodation the nucleus became more convex and that the central thickness increased whereas the equatorial diameter decreased. This decrease in equatorial diameter of the nucleus with accommodation is in accordance with the Helmholtz accommodation theory. Finally, the volume of the nucleus (on average 35 mm(3)) showed no significant change during accommodation in any of the subjects, presumably due to the fact that the human nucleus consists of incompressible material with a Poisson's ratio that is near .5.

Gullstrand suggested that there would be an increase in the equivalent refractive index with accommodation; the intra-capsulary mechanism of accommodation. However, we found that the equivalent refractive index of the lens does not change with accommodation when the accommodative lag is taken into account. Furthermore, it appeared to be possible to simulate the accommodative process of a subject with a two-compartment model with constant refractive indices.

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