Opportunities of the elastometry method for investigating the elastic properties of the eyeball shell

Abstract

On the basis of a maximally simple mechanical model, the possibility to estimate the stiffness of the eyeball shell using the intraocular pressures measured in the presence of different weights applied to the cornea (elastometry method) is investigated. On the basis of general considerations of dimensional theory, it is shown that the pressure difference used in ophthalmology for estimating the rigidity of the eye ball and determined in the elastometry procedure depends on the ratio E/p ₀, where E is a quantity characterizing the shell stiffness and p ₀ is the intraocular pressure in the unloaded eye. An experimental procedure, which can be treated as a development of the elastometry method and makes it possible to estimate a certain parameter dependent only on the eyeball shell stiffness, is proposed. The practical realization of the method proposed needs to be checked experimentally.