A Three-Dimensional Finite-Element Model of a Human Dry Skull for Bone-Conduction Hearing

A three-dimensional finite-element (FE) model of a human dry skull was devised for simulation of human bone-conduction (BC) hearing. Although a dry skull is a simplification of the real complex human skull, such model is valuable for understanding basic BC hearing processes. For validation of the model, the mechanical point impedance of the skull as well as the acceleration of the ipsilateral and contralateral cochlear bone was computed and compared to experimental results. Simulation results showed reasonable consistency between the mechanical point impedance and the experimental measurements when Young's modulus for skull and polyurethane was set to be 7.3 GPa and 1 MPa with 0.01 and 0.1 loss factors at 1 kHz, respectively. Moreover, the acceleration in the medial-lateral direction showed the best correspondence with the published experimental data, whereas the acceleration in the inferior-superior direction showed the largest discrepancy. However, the results were reasonable considering that different geometries were used for the 3D FE skull and the skull used in the published experimental study. The dry skull model is a first step for understanding BC hearing mechanism in a human head and simulation results can be used to predict vibration pattern of the bone surrounding the middle and inner ear during BC stimulation.