Shear mechanical properties of the spleen: experiment and analytical modelling.

This paper aims at providing the first shear mechanical properties of spleen tissue. Rheometric tests on porcine splenic tissues were performed in the linear and nonlinear regime, revealing a weak frequency dependence of the dynamic moduli in linear regime and a distinct strain-hardening effect in nonlinear regime. These behaviours are typical of soft tissues such as kidney and liver, with however a less pronounced strain-hardening for the spleen. An analytical model based on power laws is then proposed to describe the general shear viscoelastic behaviour of the spleen.