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In-vivo characterization of soft tissues is a key step toward biomechanical simulation and planning of intra-operative assisted surgery. To achieve this, aspiration method is a standard technique: tissue is aspirated through a hole while measuring the pressure and associated apex height. An inverse problem is then solved to identify the material mechanical properties. In the literature, the apex height is usually measured using a camera, which induces design difficulties, in particular in regards on the required sterilization process for in-vivo measurements. In this paper, the idea is to replace the apex height optical measurement by the measurement of the aspirated tissue volume. The proposed method enables to reduce the system head to a simple tube: sterilizations becomes easy and the system is disposable after use. The proposed system is thus the simplest, lightest and cheapest one could achieve. It is also to the authors knowledge the first time ever in aspiration method that the aspired volume is the extracted data. As the data signal-to-noise ratio is the main factor impacting any applied inverse method when extracting the mechanical properties, the aim of this work is to assess and compare the experimental signal-to-noise ratio in the raw volume measurements obtained either optically or with the method proposed. Explicit results of inverse methods using volumes as input data are not presented in this paper for concision purpose. The effects on accuracy of various experimental parameters has been investigated and quantified: the volume measurement has proved to present a same order or even better signal-to-noise ratio compared to optical measurements.

This paper presents a theoretical and experimental study on lateral compression of square and rectangular metal columns. Some theoretical relations are derived to predict the absorbed energy, the specific absorbed energy and the instantaneous lateral load during the lateral compression. Analytical relations are obtained in two stages: elastic and plastic parts. In the plastic zone, the total absorbed energy by the column is calculated, based on the energy method. Then, an analytical equation is derived to predict the instantaneous lateral load. In the elastic part, the instantaneous load is obtained by linear behavior assumption. To verify the theoretical formulas, some lateral compression tests were carried out on square and rectangular columns and the experimental results are compared with the theoretical predictions, which shows a good agreement. Also, based on the experiments, effects of geometrical dimensions and material properties of the columns on the energy absorption capability are investigated. The results show that the absorbed energy by a column increases proportional to the column length. Also, columns with the thicker wall have the higher specific absorbed energy and so, rectangular columns with the thicker wall are the better energy absorbers during the flattening process. Also, the absorbed energy increases when the length of the column edge along which the load is applied decreases. Also, it is found that the specific absorbed energy by the aluminum columns is higher than the brazen ones and therefore, flattened columns with the high ratio of the flow stress/density are the better energy absorbers.