Biomechanical Stress and Strain Analysis of Mandibular Human Region from Computed Tomography to Custom Implant Development

Abstract

Currently computational tools are helping and improving the processes and testing procedures in several areas of knowledge. Computed tomography (CT) is a diagnostic tool already consolidated and now beginning to be used as a tool for something even more innovative, creating biomodels. Biomodels are anatomical physical copies of human organs and tissues that are used for diagnosis and surgical planning. The use of tomographic images in the creation of biomodels has been arousing great interest in the medical and bioengineering area. In addition to creating biomodels by computed tomography it is also possible, using this process, to create mathematical models to perform computer simulations and analyses of regions of interest. This paper discusses the creation of a biomodel of the skull-mandibular region of a patient from CT for study and evaluation of efforts in the area of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) aiming at the design and development of a TMJ custom prosthesis. The evaluation of efforts in the TMJ region due to the forces of mastication was made using the finite element method and the results were corroborated by comparison with mandibular models studied in similar works.

Three-Dimensional Finite Element Analysis on Mandibular Biomechanics Simulation under Normal and Traumatic Conditions

“…The partial volumes of cortical and trabecular tissue, respectively, had to be determined in this scenario. The values used for a homogenous bone structure, which were employed in the second model, in the biomechanical investigation of the mandible on impact, have been also reported by Gregolin et al and Gallas Torreira et al [14,18].…”

“…Finding a correct value for the elastic modulus of the homogeneous bone is very difficult as it depends not only on the elastic moduli of the cortical and trabecular bone but also on the geometry of the model. Thus, for the elastic modulus and the Poisson's coefficient, the values mentioned by other authors in a similar study [18] were used (E = 15 GPa, v = 0.3).…”

“…First, the forces generated by the three primary muscles involved in the mastication process, namely the temporal, masseter, and median pterygoid were applied to the mandible to simulate its normal loading conditions. The values and the orientations of these forces were taken from the study by Gregolin et al [18]. The surfaces on which each of the six muscles acts have been established approximately, based on the information about their areas of insertion gathered from textbooks about the anatomy and physiology of the stomatognathic system.…”

“…Due to the sheer models created by biomechanics, the mathematical computation can be used to analyze complex processes. In the research of bone-breaking strength, an essential property is its mechanical characteristic that represents the relationship between bone deformation and stress, and it is determined by the bone structure [14][15][16][17][18][19]. The employment of modern computational methods such as FE analysis provides an alternative solution to the physical model that can evaluate complex structures with variable geometry and mechanical properties based on a virtual model [20].…”

3D Printing Experimental Validation of the Finite Element Analysis of the Maxillofacial Model

“…The finite element (FE) method is a powerful tool to analyze complex systems (i.e., TMJ). The FE models improve the understanding of the behavior of TMJ at different stages of life and with various functional loads (DeVocht et al, 2001;Gregolin et al, 2017;Shu et al, 2020a,b). The simulation also provided the biomechanical properties of TMJ with loading (Beek et al, 2000(Beek et al, , 2001bSun et al, 2015).…”