Viscoelastic Material to Simulate Body Tissue

http://www.simulab.com/ballard-company-helps-doctors-hollywood

Or you could get a fresh ham.

The ham is not a bad suggestion & I have been to the butcher already. The big problem with this approach is one of consistency - too many variables.

Use cow or pork gelatine 20 to 30% in hot (60ºC) water. To keep it for a time add some Benzalconium cl (1/1000) to prevent bacterial / fungal contamination. Specs for gelatine are mesh size and bloom. I would recommend mesh 100, 200 Bloom. Do not use boiling water as it degrades the quality of gelatine. Request some samples, then buy larger amounts (4U$/Kg x 25 kg bags). Manufacturers are very large international corporations.

There are edible gelatines, pharmaceutical and also industrial grades. Price does not vary very much from one to another.

Thanks for your suggestion. I will need to get my head around what mesh size and bloom mean in engineering terms. Ultimately the problem I'm trying to overcome with the gel I'm using at the moment is a tear-strength issue, so I'm guessing if it has a mesh-like structure it should help this problem.

mesh is referred to particle size obtained by sieving -US Standard sieve-. Mesh 5 is coarse, while Mesh 100 is fine. If you require no air included in the solution use mesh 5 to 20. Finely ground gelatin is to be used mixed with other powders like sugar or colorants. The measure called Bloom Is referred to how hard a gelatin gets: the higher the bloom, the harder the gelatin: a high Bloom seems to what you need to use. Finally, adding minimum amounts of formaldehyde you can also increase tear resistance. In this field it is just a matter of trial an error... but I already gave you some useful hints!

If you have kids, buy edible gelatin, use what you need for your testings and the rest for making marshmallows! (search the recipe on the net, it´s very easy to be done!)

Ballistic gelatin will likely serve your purpose. It's fairly low cost, but can be difficult to handle in hot weather. It's also not completely transparent. There is a silicone replacement that has none of these drawbacks, but is expensive.

#7note, ballistic gelatin is the right one. It has a few decades use for ballistic purpose for testing by manufacturers, police, FBI etc. Refined, plenty of experience with mechanical factors. I would go with true and tried (and not expensive).

well, ballistic gelatin IS made of (regular) gelatin. In a previous posting I gave you an empiric formulation. Just searched Wikipedia that quotes: "The most commonly used formula: "10% ballistic gelatin", is prepared by dissolving 1 part 250 bloom gelatin into 9 parts of warm water (by mass), mixing the water while pouring in the powdered gelatin. It is chilled to 4° Celsius (39° Fahrenheit)" ... which is not much different to mine!

Well, I only knew it by its common name.

Thanks for the education!

I agree and always recommend the tried and true material first However, in this case, the tried and true gelatin has some limitations. As noted previously, it melts when it gets warm and is not completely transparent. These are two reasons why the same government agencies that have used it for years are evaluating the ballistic silicone materials.

Is I posted some days ago, f you need to increase the melting point of gelatin, you have to add 1 %formaldehyde to it