Biomechanical properties of abdominal organs under tension with special reference to increasing strain rate

Currently, abdominal finite element models overlook the organs such as gallbladder, bladder, and intestines, which instead are modeled as a simple bag that is not included in the analysis. Further characterization of the material properties is required for researchers to include these organs into models. This study characterized the mechanical properties of human and porcine gallbladder, bladder, and intestines using uniaxial tension loading from the rates of 25%/s to 500%/s. Small differences were observed between human and porcine gallbladder elastic modulus, failure stress, and failure strain. Strain rate was determined to be a significant factor for predicting porcine gallbladder elastic modulus and failure stress which were found to be 9.03 MPa and 1.83 MPa at 500%/s. Human bladder was observed to be slightly stiffer with a slightly lower failure stress than porcine specimens. Both hosts, however, demonstrated a strain rate dependency with the elastic modulus and failure stress increasing as the rate increased with the highest elastic modulus (2.16 MPa) and failure stress (0.65 MPa) occurring at 500%/s. Both human and porcine intestines were observed to be affected by the strain rate. Failure stress was found to be 1.6 MPa and 1.42 MPa at 500%/s for the human and porcine intestines respectively. For all properties found to be strain rate dependent, a numerical model was created to quantify the impact. These results will enable researchers to create more detailed finite element models that include the gallbladder, bladder, and intestines.