Measurement of the reduced elastic modulus of biological soft tissues with mm-indentation elastometer

The elasticity of biological tissue is the major basis to determine if any disease occurs within the tissue. Young's modulus is a key parameter that represents the elasticity of the tissue. This paper mainly deals with the set-up of an mm-indention elastometer using Labview software platform and some hardware like data acquisition card and motion control card etc. And by using the mm-indention elastometer, the experiments are conducted for purchased cold-fresh beef, pork, pig liver & kidney samples from the market. During the experiments the data of load force and indentation depth on tissue samples acted by a spherical indenter are directly obtained by the system itself. Then the reduced elastic modulus of tested samples can be deducted according to the analytic relationship between indenter radius R, load force F, indentation depth and sample's equivalent Young's modulus E^* after the measured data are calibrated. The experimental results are coincident with that in reported papers. It shows that that the designed indentation device in millimeter scale can be adapted to measure the equivalent Young's modulus of biological tissue.