Sound Transmission in the First Nonlinear Model of Middle Ear with an Active Implant

This paper shows an influence of a transducer of a middle ear implant on ear dynamics on the basis of the multi-degree-of-freedom biomechanical system. Results of numerical simulations of an ear model with implant are compared with those of the healthy middle ear. Two variants of damping are analysed. The first one typical for a normal healthy middle ear structure and the second one describes pathological properties of the human ear. Moreover, the behaviour of the transducer under various external excitations is investigated. For some set of parameters, the middle ear with the implant behaves regularly but sometimes even chaotically in case of strong excitation.