Mechanical Characterization of Brain Tissue in Compression

Abstract

The biomechanical behavior of brain tissue is needed for predicting the traumatic brain injury (TBI). Each year over 1.5 million people sustain a TBI in the United States. The appropriate coefficients for modeling the injury prediction can be evaluated using experimental data. In the present paper, using an experimental setup on bovine brain tissue, unconfined compression tests at quasi-static strain rates of ε. = 0.0004s−1, 0.008s−1 and 0.4s−1 combined with a stress relaxation test under unconfined uniaxial compression with ε. = 0.67s−1 ramp rate are performed. The fitted visco-hyperelastic parameters were utilized by using obtained stress-strain curves. The finite element analysis (FEA) is validated using experimental data.