STATIC FINITE DEFORMATION ANALYSIS OF THE LUNG

In this paper lung parenchyma is treated as a compressible continuum undergoing nonlinear elastic finite deformation. Stresses, deformations, and other regional properties in the lung are determined by the finite element method using the iterative procedure. The strain energy density function of the material is obtained by using the averaged alveolus concept of an earlier study. The physical model and the kinematic conditions of the lung used for numerical results follow closely to the true anatomical configurations. Results of regional lung behavior based on this approach compared well with the experimentally measured data.