Numerical and mechanical modeling of the inner ear vestibular apparatus

Rony Chung (1, 2) , Flavio Luiz Bussamra (1) , Pierre Selva (2) , Joseph Morlier (2)

1 Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica - ITA (BRAZIL)
2 ICA - Institut Clément Ader

As you read this text, tilt your head left and right. Note then that the text stands still. Now draw a clear line onto the ground, close your eyes and walk over it. You most likely succeeded. The aforementioned facts or abilities are remarkable skills given by a small inner ear organ set, the vestibular system. Usually operating in the background, this structure infrequently comes to the attention of our conscious mind. In this work, three finite element models (in CATIA V5R18 and COMSOL Multiphysics 3.5a environments) are developed to provide a mechanical understanding of this formidable nature’s gift. In these numerical models, a fluid structure interaction modeling is presented to show the system behavior during a horizontal head spin. Finally, a physical augmented scale model is proposed, including the choice of materials and a similitude study.

Mots clés: Inner ear; Vestibular System; Finite Elements Modeling; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Bioengineering

Domaines: Mécanique des structures [physics.class-ph]

Rony Chung, Flavio Luiz Bussamra, Pierre Selva, Joseph Morlier. Numerical and mechanical modeling of the inner ear vestibular apparatus. IX Argentinian Congress on Computational Mechnanics (MECOM 2010), Nov 2010, Buenos Aires, Argentina. pp.6465-6485. ⟨hal-01852310⟩