Young's Modulus Measurement on Pig Trachea and Bronchial Airways

Young's Modulus was measured on the trachea and first three generations of pig airways by compression. A simple and low-cost system for measuring the elastic properties of small bio-materials is presented. The force-displacement measurements have been undertaken on dissected cartilage and trachea mucosa from pig trachea and bronchial segments. Young's Modulus of trachea wall, 1.78 +/- 0.51 MPa, is found to be dominated by the trachea cartilage of value 1.74 +/- 0.85 MPa while the modulus for trachea mucosa was 0.15 +/- 0.03 MPa. The Young's Modulus of the airway wall from the first three generations of bronchi decreases from 1.35 +/- 0.17 to 0.35 +/- 0.10 MPa which is also found to be dominated by the airway cartilage. Airway mucosa is found to have similar Young's modulus of 0.036 +/- 0.005 MPa for the first three generations of bronchial airways.