RESUMEN: The inverse elasticity problem can be simply stated as: given a deformed configuration and the forces that act on it, find an initial stress-free configuration such that when the given forces are applied to it, one recovers the given deformed configuration. Surprisingly, this problem can be framed as a (direct) elasticity one, whose mathematical properties are inherited from the original direct problem if the underlying material is sufficiently regular.
In this seminar, I will review this problem and its main mathematical properties. After this brief introduction, I will show some artifacts that appear when solving this problem, such as self-intersections and geometrically incompatible solutions. The talk will finish with an extension of this system to poroelastic materials, where I will show that the strong form of the equations does not allow for a weak formulation, and this requires some special treatment. All models will be shown to work in realistic heart geometries.