Title: Characterisation of electromechanical response of forehead tissues due to fluid impact during shirodhara treatment

Authors: Swathika Meenraj; Chebolu Lakshmana Rao; Venkatesh Balasubramanian

Addresses: Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600 036, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600 036, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Engineering Design, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600 036, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: Shirodhara, an Ayurveda treatment, is idealised as an application of fluid impact on a piezoelectric plate completely bonded with another elastic plate. The human forehead is approximated as an isotropic homogeneous curved piezoelectric plate over another plate which is idealised as an elastic foundation. Displacement, stresses and voltages will be induced in the plate due to the impact of fluid. The fluids used for force analysis are Ksheerabala oil and Mahanarayana oil. A pure mechanical analysis was conducted to estimate displacements and stresses induced by fluid impact with different boundary conditions under static loading condition. Induced voltages due to fluid impact are estimated using appropriate piezoelectric constants. The implication of these generated voltages on the effectiveness of shirodhara treatment is discussed.

Keywords: fluid impact; ayurveda; shirodhara; piezoelectric plate; elastic foundation; static load; electromechanical; displacement; stress; voltage.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMSI.2018.095888

International Journal of Materials and Structural Integrity, 2018 Vol.12 No.4, pp.353 - 366

Received: 16 Jun 2018
Accepted: 24 Jun 2018
Published online: 25 Oct 2018 *

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