Influence of Pipette Geometry on the Displacement Profile of Isotropic Materials used for Vocal Fold Modeling

Abstract

Due to limited access to human vocal folds, synthetic vocal folds are used to study periodic phonation. With respect to a realistic replica, the properties of the synthetic material should be to those of as real tissue. Silicone rubber is a commonly used material for vocal fold models. A suitable method to analyze the material parameters of both artificial and real vocal folds is the pipette aspiration technique. In the present study, the displacement profiles of an isotropic silicone specimen were measured with three different pipette geometries. The experimental results were compared to finite element simulations of the setup based on frequency dependent material parameters extracted from a previous study. The results demonstrate the potential of the pipette aspiration technique for material characterization and validate the determination of material parameters by means of an Inverse Method. Furthermore, a possible parameter for the classification of anisotropic materials is proposed and the suitability of the different pipette geometries for material characterization is discussed.