Ramme Austin J, Shivanna Kiran H, Criswell Amy J, Kallemeyn Nicole A, Magnotta Vincent A, Grosland Nicole M
Carver College of Medicine, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA.
Comput Methods Biomech Biomed Engin. 2012;15(10):1043-52. doi: 10.1080/10255842.2011.570338. Epub 2011 May 24.
Finite element (FE) analysis is a cornerstone of orthopaedic biomechanics research. Three-dimensional medical imaging provides sufficient resolution for the subject-specific FE models to be generated from these data-sets. FE model development requires discretisation of a three-dimensional domain, which can be the most time-consuming component of a FE study. Hexahedral meshing tools based on the multiblock method currently rely on the manual placement of building blocks for mesh generation. We hypothesise that angular analysis of the geometric centreline for a three-dimensional surface could be used to automatically generate building block structures for the multiblock hexahedral mesh generation. Our algorithm uses a set of user-defined points and parameters to automatically generate a multiblock structure based on a surface's geometric centreline. This significantly reduces the time required for model development. We have applied this algorithm to 47 bones of varying geometries and successfully generated a FE mesh in all cases. This work represents significant advancement in automatically generating multiblock structures for a wide range of geometries.
有限元（FE）分析是骨科生物力学研究的基石。三维医学成像为从这些数据集中生成特定于个体的有限元模型提供了足够的分辨率。有限元模型的开发需要对三维域进行离散化，这可能是有限元研究中最耗时的部分。基于多块方法的六面体网格划分工具目前依赖于手动放置构建块来生成网格。我们假设对三维表面的几何中心线进行角度分析可用于自动生成用于多块六面体网格生成的构建块结构。我们的算法使用一组用户定义的点和参数，基于表面的几何中心线自动生成多块结构。这显著减少了模型开发所需的时间。我们已将此算法应用于47块不同几何形状的骨骼，并在所有情况下成功生成了有限元网格。这项工作代表了在为广泛的几何形状自动生成多块结构方面的重大进展。
