Determination of the shape and inertia properties of the human auditory ossicles.

This paper describes a method to accurately determine the shape of the human middle ear ossicles. If the density and the shape of a body are known, the inertia properties can be calculated using commercially available software. The inertia properties have been calculated for the stapes and for the incudomalleal unit. Different rectangular views of the stapes and the incudomalleal unit are shown to depict the position of the center of gravity and the position of the principal axes of inertia.