Simulation of the human intracranial arterial tree

Author(s):  
Leopold Grinberg ◽  
Tomer Anor ◽  
Elizabeth Cheever ◽  
Joseph R. Madsen ◽  
George Em Karniadakis

High-resolution unsteady three-dimensional flow simulations in large intracranial arterial networks of a healthy subject and a patient with hydrocephalus have been performed. The large size of the computational domains requires the use of thousands of computer processors and solution of the flow equations with approximately one billion degrees of freedom. We have developed and implemented a two-level domain decomposition method, and a new type of outflow boundary condition to control flow rates at tens of terminal vessels of the arterial network. In this paper, we demonstrate the flow patterns in the normal and abnormal intracranial arterial networks using patient-specific data.

Author(s):  
Surabhi Rathore ◽  
Tomoki Uda ◽  
Viet Q. H. Huynh ◽  
Hiroshi Suito ◽  
Toshitaka Watanabe ◽  
...  

AbstractHemodialysis procedure is usually advisable for end-stage renal disease patients. This study is aimed at computational investigation of hemodynamical characteristics in three-dimensional arteriovenous shunt for hemodialysis, for which computed tomography scanning and phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging are used. Several hemodynamical characteristics are presented and discussed depending on the patient-specific morphology and flow conditions including regurgitating flow from the distal artery caused by the construction of the arteriovenous shunt. A simple backflow prevention technique at an outflow boundary is presented, with stabilized finite element approaches for incompressible Navier–Stokes equations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Ying Wu ◽  
Anton Plakseychuk ◽  
Kenji Shimada

Bone deformities are often complex three-dimensional (3D) deformities, and correcting them is difficult. To correct persistent clubfoot deformity in adolescents or adults, an external fixator is sometimes used to encourage tissue growth and preserve healthy tissues. However, it is difficult to set up, resulting in long surgeries and steep learning curves for surgeons. It is also bulky and obstructs patient mobility. In this paper, we introduce a new approach of defining clubfoot deformity correction as a six degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) correction, and then reducing it to just two degrees-of-freedom (2DOF) using the axis-angle representation. Therefore, only two physical trajectory joints are needed, which in turn enables a more compact fixator design. A computer planner was developed to minimize the bulk of the external fixator, and to optimize the distraction schedule to avoid overstretching the soft tissues. This reduces the learning curve for surgeons and shortens surgery time. To validate the system, a patient-specific clubfoot simulator was developed, and four experiments were performed on the clubfoot simulator. The accuracy of midfoot correction was 11 mm and 3.5 deg without loading, and 41 mm and 11.7 deg with loading. While the external fixator has to be more rigid to overcome resistance against correction, the surgical system itself was able to achieve accurate correction in less than 2 h. This is an improvement from the current method, which takes 2.5–4.5 h.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Manuel Millán Vaquero ◽  
Alexander Vais ◽  
Sean Dean Lynch ◽  
Jan Rzepecki ◽  
Karl-Ingo Friese ◽  
...  

We present processing methods and visualization techniques for accurately characterizing and interpreting kinematical data of flexion–extension motion of the knee joint based on helical axes. We make use of the Lie group of rigid body motions and particularly its Lie algebra for a natural representation of motion sequences. This allows to analyze and compute the finite helical axis (FHA) and instantaneous helical axis (IHA) in a unified way without redundant degrees of freedom or singularities. A polynomial fitting based on Legendre polynomials within the Lie algebra is applied to provide a smooth description of a given discrete knee motion sequence which is essential for obtaining stable instantaneous helical axes for further analysis. Moreover, this allows for an efficient overall similarity comparison across several motion sequences in order to differentiate among several cases. Our approach combines a specifically designed patient-specific three-dimensional visualization basing on the processed helical axes information and incorporating computed tomography (CT) scans for an intuitive interpretation of the axes and their geometrical relation with respect to the knee joint anatomy. In addition, in the context of the study of diseases affecting the musculoskeletal articulation, we propose to integrate the above tools into a multiscale framework for exploring related data sets distributed across multiple spatial scales. We demonstrate the utility of our methods, exemplarily processing a collection of motion sequences acquired from experimental data involving several surgery techniques. Our approach enables an accurate analysis, visualization and comparison of knee joint articulation, contributing to the evaluation and diagnosis in medical applications.


Actuators ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Fuwen Hu ◽  
Tian Li

Usually, polyhedra are viewed as the underlying constructive cells of packing or tilling in many disciplines, including crystallography, protein folding, viruses structure, building architecture, etc. Here, inspired by the flexible origami polyhedra (commonly called origami flexiballs), we initially probe into their intrinsic metamaterial properties and robotized methods from fabrication to actuation. Firstly, the topology, geometries and elastic energies of shape shifting are analyzed for the three kinds of origami flexiballs with extruded outward rhombic faces. Provably, they meet the definitions of reconfigurable and transformable metamaterials with switchable stiffness and multiple degrees of freedom. Secondly, a new type of soft actuator with rhombic deformations is successfully put forward, different from soft bionic deformations like elongating, contracting, bending, twisting, spiraling, etc. Further, we redesign and fabricate the three-dimensional (3D) printable structures of origami flexiballs considering their 3D printability and foldability, and magnetically actuated them through the attachment of magnetoactive elastomer. Lastly, a fully soft in-pipe robot prototype is presented using the origami flexiball as an applicable attempt. Experimental work clearly suggests that the presented origami flexiball robot has good adaptability to various pipe sizes, and also can be easily expanded to different scales, or reconfigured into more complex metastructures by assembly. In conclusion, this research provides a newly interesting and illuminating member for the emerging families of mechanical metamaterials, soft actuators and soft robots.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fuyou Liang ◽  
Marie Oshima ◽  
Huaxiong Huang ◽  
Hao Liu ◽  
Shu Takagi

Free outflow boundary conditions have been widely adopted in hemodynamic model studies, they, however, intrinsically lack the ability to account for the regulatory mechanisms of systemic hemodynamics and hence carry a risk of producing incorrect results when applied to vascular segments with multiple outlets. In the present study, we developed a multiscale model capable of incorporating global cardiovascular properties into the simulation of blood flows in local vascular segments. The multiscale model was constructed by coupling a three-dimensional (3D) model of local arterial segments with a zero-one-dimensional (0-1-D) model of the cardiovascular system. Numerical validation based on an idealized model demonstrated the ability of the multiscale model to preserve reasonable pressure/flow wave transmission among different models. The multiscale model was further calibrated with clinical data to simulate cerebroarterial hemodynamics in a patient undergoing carotid artery operation. The results showed pronounced hemodynamic changes in the cerebral circulation following the operation. Additional numerical experiments revealed that a stand-alone 3D model with free outflow conditions failed to reproduce the results obtained by the multiscale model. These results demonstrated the potential advantage of multiscale modeling over single-scale modeling in patient-specific hemodynamic studies. Due to the fact that the present study was limited to a single patient, studies on more patients would be required to further confirm the findings.


Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 444
Author(s):  
Guoning Si ◽  
Liangying Sun ◽  
Zhuo Zhang ◽  
Xuping Zhang

This paper presents the design, fabrication, and testing of a novel three-dimensional (3D) three-fingered electrothermal microgripper with multiple degrees of freedom (multi DOFs). Each finger of the microgripper is composed of a V-shaped electrothermal actuator providing one DOF, and a 3D U-shaped electrothermal actuator offering two DOFs in the plane perpendicular to the movement of the V-shaped actuator. As a result, each finger possesses 3D mobilities with three DOFs. Each beam of the actuators is heated externally with the polyimide film. The durability of the polyimide film is tested under different voltages. The static and dynamic properties of the finger are also tested. Experiments show that not only can the microgripper pick and place microobjects, such as micro balls and even highly deformable zebrafish embryos, but can also rotate them in 3D space.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angad Malhotra ◽  
Matthias Walle ◽  
Graeme R. Paul ◽  
Gisela A. Kuhn ◽  
Ralph Müller

AbstractMethods to repair bone defects arising from trauma, resection, or disease, continue to be sought after. Cyclic mechanical loading is well established to influence bone (re)modelling activity, in which bone formation and resorption are correlated to micro-scale strain. Based on this, the application of mechanical stimulation across a bone defect could improve healing. However, if ignoring the mechanical integrity of defected bone, loading regimes have a high potential to either cause damage or be ineffective. This study explores real-time finite element (rtFE) methods that use three-dimensional structural analyses from micro-computed tomography images to estimate effective peak cyclic loads in a subject-specific and time-dependent manner. It demonstrates the concept in a cyclically loaded mouse caudal vertebral bone defect model. Using rtFE analysis combined with adaptive mechanical loading, mouse bone healing was significantly improved over non-loaded controls, with no incidence of vertebral fractures. Such rtFE-driven adaptive loading regimes demonstrated here could be relevant to clinical bone defect healing scenarios, where mechanical loading can become patient-specific and more efficacious. This is achieved by accounting for initial bone defect conditions and spatio-temporal healing, both being factors that are always unique to the patient.


Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 580
Author(s):  
Anna Lena Emonds ◽  
Katja Mombaur

As a whole, human sprinting seems to be a completely periodic and symmetrical motion. This view is changed when a person runs with a running-specific prosthesis after a unilateral amputation. The aim of our study is to investigate differences and similarities between unilateral below-knee amputee and non-amputee sprinters—especially with regard to whether asymmetry is a distracting factor for sprint performance. We established three-dimensional rigid multibody models of one unilateral transtibial amputee athlete and for reference purposes of three non-amputee athletes. They consist of 16 bodies (head, ipper, middle and lower trunk, upper and lower arms, hands, thighs, shanks and feet/running specific prosthesis) with 30 or 31 degrees of freedom (DOFs) for the amputee and the non-amputee athletes, respectively. Six DOFs are associated with the floating base, the remaining ones are rotational DOFs. The internal joints are equipped with torque actuators except for the prosthetic ankle joint. To model the spring-like properties of the prosthesis, the actuator is replaced by a linear spring-damper system. We consider a pair of steps which is modeled as a multiphase problem with each step consisting of a flight, touchdown and single-leg contact phase. Each phase is described by its own set of differential equations. By combining motion capture recordings with a least squares optimal control problem formulation including constraints, we reconstructed the dynamics of one sprinting trial for each athlete. The results show that even the non-amputee athletes showed less symmetrical sprinting than expected when examined on an individual level. Nevertheless, the asymmetry is much more pronounced in the amputee athlete. The amputee athlete applies larger torques in the arm and trunk joints to compensate the asymmetry and experiences a destabilizing influence of the trunk movement. Hence, the inter-limb asymmetry of the amputee has a significant effect on the control of the sprint movement and the maintenance of an upright body position.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niksa Mohammadi Bagheri ◽  
Mahmoud Kadkhodaei ◽  
Shiva Pirhadi ◽  
Peiman Mosaddegh

AbstractThe implementation of intracorneal ring segments (ICRS) is one of the successfully applied refractive operations for the treatment of keratoconus (kc) progression. The different selection of ICRS types along with the surgical implementation techniques can significantly affect surgical outcomes. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the influence of ICRS implementation techniques and design on the postoperative biomechanical state and keratometry results. The clinical data of three patients with different stages and patterns of keratoconus were assessed to develop a three-dimensional (3D) patient-specific finite-element model (FEM) of the keratoconic cornea. For each patient, the exact surgery procedure definitions were interpreted in the step-by-step FEM. Then, seven surgical scenarios, including different ICRS designs (complete and incomplete segment), with two surgical implementation methods (tunnel incision and lamellar pocket cut), were simulated. The pre- and postoperative predicted results of FEM were validated with the corresponding clinical data. For the pre- and postoperative results, the average error of 0.4% and 3.7% for the mean keratometry value ($$\text {K}_{\text{mean}}$$ K mean ) were predicted. Furthermore, the difference in induced flattening effects was negligible for three ICRS types (KeraRing segment with arc-length of 355, 320, and two separate 160) of equal thickness. In contrast, the single and double progressive thickness of KeraRing 160 caused a significantly lower flattening effect compared to the same type with constant thickness. The observations indicated that the greater the segment thickness and arc-length, the lower the induced mean keratometry values. While the application of the tunnel incision method resulted in a lower $$\text {K}_{\text{mean}}$$ K mean value for moderate and advanced KC, the induced maximum Von Mises stress on the postoperative cornea exceeded the induced maximum stress on the cornea more than two to five times compared to the pocket incision and the preoperative state of the cornea. In particular, an asymmetric regional Von Mises stress on the corneal surface was generated with a progressive ICRS thickness. These findings could be an early biomechanical sign for a later corneal instability and ICRS migration. The developed methodology provided a platform to personalize ICRS refractive surgery with regard to the patient’s keratoconus stage in order to facilitate the efficiency and biomechanical stability of the surgery.


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