Patent Document ID: 20100049451
Application ID: 12459418
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for identifying the distribution of material elastic properties in a thin membrane material, comprising the steps of: (a) inflating the membrane material; (b) measuring multiple deformed configurations and corresponding inflation pressures of the membrane material; (b) computing the stress distribution in each of the multiple deformed configurations using the inverse elastostatic method; (c) determining the strain distribution in each of the multiple deformed configurations from said measuring step; (d) acquiring a set of stress-strain data at a point of interest from said computing step and said determining step, wherein the stress-strain data embeds one or more material properties at the point of interest; (e) fitting pointwise the stress-strain data to a proper constitutive model; (f) characterizing the one or more material properties at the point of interest by delineating the one or more material properties from said fitting step; and (g) repeating steps (d) through (f).