Cartographie de la sensibilité cutanée du conduit auditif humain : caractérisations mécaniques préalables au développement d’un bouchon sonde (Phase II)

Abstract

Noise in the workplace is responsible for the hearing loss of many workers. In fact, deafness is the most common occupational disease in Quebec, despite the use of hearing protection. These are worn little or poorly by workers because of the discomfort they experience. This discomfort can be multiple, but this project focuses on its mechanical component. In-ear protection exerts mechanical pressure on the walls of the ear canal, which causes this sensation of discomfort. Few works deal with this pressure and its influence on the sensation of comfort. This is why a first project was conducted with the aim of measuring the skin sensitivity of the canal, which seems to play a role in the appreciation of comfort. The work carried out in this thesis follows on from that project. In order to be able to measure and map the cutaneous sensitivity of the ear canal, an existing injection system connected to an instrumented probe earplug was improved. This probe earplug allows pressure points to be applied at several points in the ear canal using medical balloons. A measuring system allows to know the internal pressure of these balloons. In order to have a precise measurement of the pressure actually applied to the ear canal, a characterization of this probe earplug is carried out. A finite element simulation combined with an optical measurement is used. The results obtained show that it is possible to model the behaviour of the balloons used for the probe cap using this characterization method and a hyperelsatic model. This will allow a better knowledge of the system developed to allow later a precise measurement of the skin sensitivity of the canal, and thus better understand the contribution of this sensitivity in the sensation of discomfort of hearing protection.

Date	2 Oct 2020
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Jérémie Voix (Supervisor) & Olivier Doutres (Co-supervisor)