Abstract
A proposed method based on a so-called meshless method is designed to simulate the structural behaviors of 3D medical parts. To do the simulation, the STL (Stereo-Lithography) geometry, which is the main geometry format used in 3D printing and medical models, is adopted to be the analysis model. Moreover, the geometry model of the objects in STL format becomes the only model needed for the simulation. To achieve this, some geometry-related treatments are required, so some checking processes are designed to handle the analysis model during the analysis. Hence, with the proposed meshless method based on STL geometry, the simulation can be carried out in a simple and straightforward way with less preparation effort for analysis models. A 3D simulation has been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of this proposed method. Besides, the parts with highly complicated shapes can also be simulated without difficulty.
Highlights
The finite element method (FEM) is a powerful method popularly adopted in dealing with practical engineering problems
There are many auto-mesh generators, they are not preferred by the academia and industry because they can only generate tetrahedral elements, instead of favorite hexahedral elements, and randomly create a huge amount of elements, which become difficult to handle for computers and analysts
In the meshless methods, such as the MLPG, element-free Galerkin method (EFGM) and most meshless methods, a moving least-squares (MLS) approximation based on surrounding nodes within certain radius is adopted to derive the shape functions [1]
Summary
The finite element method (FEM) is a powerful method popularly adopted in dealing with practical engineering problems It causes difficulties during numerical simulations due to some disadvantages. The convergence and accuracy of the solutions is strongly affected by the element shape, which often becomes very distorted in large deformation cases These disadvantages become more serious in dealing with three-dimensional practical engineering problems. Even cases with highly irregular geometry, often encountered in medical field, can be handled with the proposed method.
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