Characterization of the nonlinear behaviour and the failure of human liver capsule through inflation tests

This paper aims at describing an inflation test protocol on a human liver capsule using stereo-correlation. The biaxial tension created by the inflation test is comparable to the type of loading the capsule would be subjected to during a liver compression. Confocal microscopy associated to an anti-collagen coloration reveals that the tissue is isotropic at the meso-scale. Stereo-correlation provides the strain field of the capsule during the test. It emphasizes the boundary condition effects on the strain field. The measurement of the shape of the capsule is used to determine the parameters of two hyperelastic (polynomial and exponential) homogeneous models. The ultimate first principal strain before failure is measured locally and its value is 50.5%±10.8%. In this protocol, the light goes throughout the sample and makes the heterogeneities of the material appear as darker grey levels on the pictures. These heterogeneities also appear on the strain fields, so we can assume that they have different material properties.