Biomechanical modeling of metal screw loadings on the human vertebra

During spinal fusion surgery,angled screw insertion can provide a more favorable stress distribution reducing failure events(screw breakage and loosening).Finite element(FE)analysis can be employed for identifying the optimal insertion path,preventing stress concentrations,and ensuring a lower failure incidence.In this work,a patient-specific FE model of L4 vertebra,virtually implanted with two pedicle screws,was obtained from diagnostic images and numerically investigated.Linearly elastic,inhomogeneous,and isotropic material properties were assigned to bone based on density distributions reconstructed from the medical images.The mechanical response of the screws-vertebra system was analyzed through a progressive damage procedure,considering a stress-based criterion.Different screws insertion angles were simulated,as well as physiological loading conditions.In each loading case,screw orientation influences the fracture mechanism(i.e.,brittle or ductile one),as well as the fracture pattern and load.Besides,stresses in trabecular bone and pedicle screws are significantly affected by the screw configuration.The caudomedial trajectory indicates the most safe case,significantly reducing the stress concentrations in both trabecular bone and screws.Our findings aim to furnish a useful indication to surgeons regarding the screws insertion angle,further reducing the failure risk and improving the clinical outcome of the fixation procedure.

Modelling Thermo-Electro-Mechanical Effects in Orthotropic Cardiac Tissue

In this paper we introduce a new mathematical model for the active contraction of cardiac muscle,featuring different thermo-electric and nonlinear conductivity properties.The passive hyperelastic response of the tissue is described by an orthotropic exponential model,whereas the ionic activity dictates active contraction in-corporated through the concept of orthotropic active strain.We use a fully incompressible formulation,and the generated strain modifies directly the conductivity mechanisms in the medium through the pull-back transformation.We also investigate the influence of thermo-electric effects in the onset of multiphysics emergent spatiotem-poral dynamics,using nonlinear diffusion.It turns out that these ingredients have a key role in reproducing pathological chaotic dynamics such as ventricular fibrillation during inflammatory events,for instance.The specific structure of the governing equations suggests to cast the problem in mixed-primal form and we write it in terms of Kirchhoff stress,displacements,solid pressure,dimensionless electric potential,activation generation,and ionic variables.We also advance a new mixed-primal finite element method for its numerical approximation,and we use it to explore the properties of the model and to assess the importance of coupling terms,by means of a few computational experiments in 3D.

Theoretical and Numerical Modeling of Nonlinear Electromechanics with applications to Biological Active Media

We present a general theoretical framework for the formulation of the nonlinear electromechanics of polymeric and biological active media.The approach developed here is based on the additive decomposition of the Helmholtz free energy in elastic and inelastic parts and on the multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient in passive and active parts.We describe a thermodynamically sound scenario that accounts for geometric and material nonlinearities.In view of numerical applications,we specialize the general approach to a particular material model accounting for the behavior of fiber reinforced tissues.Specifically,we use the model to solve via finite elements a uniaxial electromechanical problem dynamically activated by an electrophysiological stimulus.Implications for nonlinear solid mechanics and computational electrophysiology are finally discussed.