Wave model of the cat tympanic membrane.

In order to better understand signal propagation in the ear, a time-domain model of the tympanic membrane (TM) and of the ossicular chain (OC) is derived for the cat. Ossicles are represented by a two-port network and the TM is discretized into a series of transmission lines, each one characterized by its own delay and reflection coefficient. Volume velocity samples are distributed along the ear canal, the eardrum, and the middle ear, and are updated periodically to simulate wave propagation. The interest of the study resides in its time-domain implementation--while most previous related works remain in the frequency domain--which provides not only a direct observation of the propagating wave at each location, but also insight about how the wave behaves at the ear canal/TM interface. The model is designed to match a typical impedance behavior and is compared to previously published measurements of the middle ear (the canal, the TM, the ossicles and the annular ligament). The model matches the experimental data up to 15 kHz.