title: The distribution of pressure behind a soft contact lens.
abstract: We determine the pressure distribution behind a soft contact lens that is necessary to keep the lens in conformity with an axisymmetric substrate. The substrate consists of two regions: a central portion, the cornea, supposed to be an ellipsoid; and a peripheral region, the sclera, taken to be a sphere. The pressure is obtained as part of a numerical solution of the axisymmetric equilibrium equations for an initially curved, linearly elastic membrane. The relaxed shape of the lens is assumed to be an axisymmetric ellipsoid with a central curvature and a shape factor different from those of the cornea. The variation in the thickness of the lens from its center to edge is approximated by a polynomial. Pressure distributions are obtained for several typical soft contact lens fittings.
mesh_terms: D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D003263:Contact Lenses, Hydrophilic; D003315:Cornea / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D008433:Mathematics; D011312:Pressure; D012590:Sclera / Q000033:anatomy & histology