Study of the deformations of the isolated mandible under static constraints by simulation on a physicomathematical model.

The authors have studied the deformations of a mandible isolated from its muscular environment and submitted to statical constraints, with the help of a "modified model" and the finite elements method: the general deformation of the mandible and its modifications according to the direction of the application of the pressure, the rotation phenomenon or "torsion" in cross sections (identified by computer) of the mandible, the respective deformations of the internal and external corticals have successively been calculated. Particular mechanical phenomenons corresponding to the areas where the anatomo-clinical forms of the mandibular fractures take place have clearly been shown. The authors draw the conclusion that the mandible behaves mechanically in a similar way to a tridimensional composite.