Biomechanical Model of the Human Eye: Description and Verification

We have developed, for ophthalmic studies, a numerical biomechanical 3D model of the human eye, which represents the main structures of the eye, is free from certain flaws of the existing models and provides a close approximation to real physiological setting. The model is construed using the finite element method. The optical parameters of the eyeball have been calculated by geometrical optic methods, while physicomechanical tissue properties were determined from the known experimental data. The accommodation model was checked against Scheimpflug imaging of eye structures of patients of various ages with no eye pathologies; the model of eye rotation was checked against the experimental data on the implantation of force sensor into the patient’s external rectus muscle and against the data on the rotation angles placing the eye into the main diagnostic positions of the gaze. The verification showed that the model adequately describes the accommodation mechanism and eye rotation in the eye socket and provides a good agreement with other clinical and experimental data of isolated parts of the eyeball, enabling useful generalizations and simulations, within an integral model of a variety of processes including those related to age.