Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
J Mech Behav Biomed Mater. 2023 Aug;144:105967. doi: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2023.105967. Epub 2023 Jun 8.
Multiscale mechanical models in biomaterials research have largely relied on simplifying the microstructure in order to make large-scale simulations tractable. The microscale simplifications often rely on approximations of the constituent distributions and assumptions on the deformation of the constituents. Of particular interest in biomechanics are fiber embedded materials, where simplified fiber distributions and assumed affinity in the fiber deformation greatly influence the mechanical behavior. The consequences of these assumptions are problematic when dealing with microscale mechanical phenomena such as cellular mechanotransduction in growth and remodeling, and fiber-level failure events during tissue failure. In this work, we propose a technique for coupling non-affine network models to finite element solvers, allowing for simulation of discrete microstructural phenomena within macroscopically complex geometries. The developed plugin is readily available as an open-source library for use with the bio-focused finite element software FEBio, and the description of the implementation allows for the adaptation to other finite element solvers.
生物材料研究中的多尺度力学模型在很大程度上依赖于简化微观结构，以便进行大规模模拟。微观简化通常依赖于组成分布的近似和组成变形的假设。在生物力学中特别感兴趣的是纤维嵌入材料，其中简化的纤维分布和纤维变形的假定亲和力极大地影响了力学行为。当涉及微观力学现象时，这些假设的后果是有问题的，例如生长和重塑过程中的细胞力学转导，以及组织失效过程中的纤维级失效事件。在这项工作中，我们提出了一种将非仿射网络模型与有限元求解器耦合的技术，允许在宏观复杂几何形状内模拟离散的微观结构现象。开发的插件可作为与专注于生物的有限元软件 FEBio 一起使用的开源库，并且实现的描述允许适应其他有限元求解器。
