Determination of the Mechanical Properties of Cardiac Tissue for 3D Printed Surgical Models

Anatomical modelling for surgical simulation has gained increasing focus over the last years. For haptic feedback soft tissue models, e.g. hearts, consist of elastic materials. To represent a similar behavior, it is useful to match the properties of the modelling material to those of the biological tissue. Due to the lack of comparable known data, this study concentrates on gaining mechanical properties, e.g. density, Shore A hardness, tensile strength and elongation, of unconditioned porcine heart tissue according to mechanical standards used for elastomers. Asides the influences of the specimen preparation, the comparison of the results of the tested cardiac tissue with technical data of commonly used modelling materials shows that the different properties like hardness or elongation are best replicated with different materials.