Motion of the vitreous humour in a deforming eye -- fluid-structure interaction between a nonlinear elastic solid and a nonlinear viscoleastic fluid

TL;DR

This paper presents a numerical approach to model the fluid-structure interaction between the nonlinear elastic eye components and the viscoelastic vitreous humour, revealing the rheological model's impact on stress distribution.

Contribution

A novel numerical methodology for simulating fluid-structure interaction in the eye, accommodating complex rheological models and realistic geometries.

Findings

Rheological model choice minimally affects flow patterns.

Rheological model significantly influences stress distribution.

Method applicable to realistic ocular geometries.

Abstract

We study the motion of vitreous humour in a deforming eyeball. From the mechanical and computational perspective this is a task to solve a fluid-structure interaction problem between a complex viscoelastic fluid (vitreour humour) and a nonlinear elastic solid (sclera and lens). We propose a numerical methodology capable of handling the fluid-structure interaction problem, and we demonstrate its applicability via solving the corresponding governing equations in a realistic geometrical setting and for realistic parameter values. It is shown that the choice of the rheological model for the vitreous humour has a negligible influence on the overall flow pattern in the domain of interest, whilst it is has a significant impact on the mechanical stress distribution in the domain of interest.