A Constitutive Model of Soft Tissue Deformation for Virtual Surgical Simulation: A Literature Review

Abstract

Realistic modeling of soft tissue deformation has been recognized as an essential requirement for virtual surgical simulators. As a consequence, the constitutive model is crucial for modeling soft tissue deformation. In this paper, the significance and characteristics of soft tissue deformation in virtual surgery simulation studies are introduced and analyzed its challenges. We have been focusing on investigating the constitutive relations in the soft tissue mechanical models: viscoelastic models and hyper-elastic models. Moreover, some techniques are given to determine and optimize model parameters through biomechanical experiments. Finally, based on the existing constitutive model, a novel notion for optimizing the soft tissue deformation constitutive model is proposed. The contribution of this paper is to provide theoretical guidance for the simulation of soft tissue deformation in the virtual surgery simulation system and to supply various practical suggestions for developing new constitutive models in the future.

Identifying the parameters of viscoelastic model for a gel-type material as representative of cardiac muscle in dynamic tests

“…15,[17][18][19][20] This model combines aspects of Maxwell and Kelvin-Voigt models and accurately describes the overall behavior of a viscoelastic material under a given set of loading conditions. 21 Wang et al 17 used the standard linear solid model for modeling porcine liver sample, Li et al 22 proposed the standard linear solid model to model the soft tissue deformation for virtual surgical simulation and Pelkie 19 characterized the viscoelastic behaviors in bovine pulmonary arterial tissue utilizing the standard linear solid model. In the present research, the discrete element-based time-dependent standard linear solid model is utilized to predict the overall behavior of the cardiac tissue under a given set of loading conditions.…”