9409877 Silver-Thorn This Research Initiation Award involves the development of a rate controlled soft tissue indentor, and in vivo evaluation of the viscoelastic behavior of the bulk soft tissues of the residual limbs of five below-knee amputees. The development of a tissue indentor to measure the bulk soft tissue loading response will provide a quantitative, objective means of estimating the bulk soft tissue properties not currently available with either the hand-fabrication or CAD-CAM techniques. Nonlinear finite element analysis will be used to simulate the experimental data, together with the bulk soft tissue geometry/composition information obtained via magnetic resonance imaging that will be carried out in this project, will significantly advance the understanding of the bulk soft tissue loading response. ***
