A fiber-reinforced Transversely Isotropic Constitutive Model for Liver Tissue

Biomechanical properties of soft tissue, such as liver, are important in modeling computer aided surgical procedures. Experimental evidences show that liver tissue is transversely isotropic. In this article, considering the liver tissue as an incompressible fiber-reinforced composite with one family of fibers, an exponential strain energy function (SEF) is proposed. The proposed SEF is based on a recently developed strain measure which is more consistent with the physics of deformation than the commonly used Green-Lagrange strain measure. To show the capabilities of the proposed SEF, comparison is done with the experimental data available in the literature. It is shown that the results of the proposed SEF is in a good agreement with the experimental data for both tensile and compression deformations.