Material Modeling of Humnan Breast for Finite Element Based Approaches in Biomechanics

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) showed reliability of computational mechanics for the estimation of organ motion. However, there are still open questions about material modeling. The importance of the adoption of appropriate material models to investigate human breast biomechanics is underestimated. The goal of this work is to demonstrate the
importance of material constitutive laws approximations in human breast Finite Element (FE) based models. Linear elastic material models are inappropriate to predict breast displacement. In this work, material models employed in a
simple FE model of human breast, undergoing large deformations due to gravity effect, are analyzed. An hemispherical geometry with a spherical inclusion is used to model the human breast shape. Different material models are investigated to accurately model changes in terms of displacement, stress, reaction forces magnitude and
distribution. Results clearly show that material modeling influences strongly the accuracy of FE models simulating large deformations of human breast.