Temperature-dependent thermomechanical modeling of soft tissue deformation

Modeling of thermomechanical behavior of soft tissues is vitally important for the development of surgical simulation of hyperthermia procedures. Currently, most literature considers only temperature-independent thermal parameters, such as the temperature-independent tissue specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity and stress-strain relationships for soft tissue thermomechanical modeling; however, these thermal parameters vary with temperatures as shown in the literature. This paper investigates the effect of temperature-dependent thermal parameters for soft tissue thermomechanical modeling. It establishes formulations for specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity and stress-strain relationships of soft tissues, all of which are temperature-dependent parameters. Simulations and comparison analyses are conducted, showing a different thermal-induced stress distribution of lower magnitudes when considering temperature-dependent thermal parameters of soft tissues.