In recent years, the finite element method has been increasingly used to study the biomechanics of bone-implant systems. Patient-specific models need to consider the individual geometry for every case. Typically, geometric models of the bone are reconstructed from medical images --- most commonly CT scans . Following segmentation, a finite element mesh has to be generated. This can be a simple voxel-based mesh, where a predefined number of voxels constitute one finite element in a grid that matches the voxel model. Alternatively, geometry-conforming meshing procedures can be used to generate an unstructured mesh. To this end, the surface points are extracted from the voxel model and converted to a solid model, which is then meshed into an unstructured grid. Similarly, the geometry of the implant is usually reconstructed from medical images, or provided by Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) models, and then incorporated in the finite element mesh. The adequate treatment of the bone-implant interface demands the spatial refinement of the finite element mesh at the interface for an accurate solution. For voxel-based finite elements, a very fine resolution is already necessary to resolve the implant's geometry. This leads to an extremely high number of degrees of freedom, as the whole grid has to be refined. On the other hand, geometry-conforming finite elements need more pre-processing (converting the bone's voxel model to a solid model), and complex meshing procedures to resolve geometries of the bone and the implant with graded refinement of the mesh towards the interface. In this contribution, we will use the finite cell method (FCM) in conjunction with a hierarchical refinement scheme to model a vertebral fixation system. The FCM discretization completely circumvents the mesh generation procedure, as the geometry is resolved on the integration level. Here, the flexibility of FCM in dealing with different types of geometric representations is demonstrated: the bone's geometry is represented by the voxel model from a CT-scan, whereas the implant's geometry is directly described by a CAD solid model. Both representations are directly used in the FCM framework, thereby substantially reducing the pre-processing effort. Furthermore, the hierarchical refinement scheme yields a higher accuracy at the bone-implant interface by adaptively refining the FCM grid.
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In recent years, the finite element method has been increasingly used to study the biomechanics of bone-implant systems. Patient-specific models need to consider the individual geometry for every case. Typically, geometric models of the bone are reconstructed from medical images --- most commonly CT scans . Following segmentation, a finite element mesh has to be generated. This can be a simple voxel-based mesh, where a predefined number of voxels constitute one finite element in a grid that m...
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