The analysis of the bone remodelling around femoral stems: A meshless approach

Abstract

In this work the bone tissue remodelling analysis of the femur bone due to the insertion of a stem is analysed. The innovation of this numerical application lies on the use of an efficient advanced discretization meshless technique to obtain the variable fields required by the remodelling process.The remodelling algorithm used in this work allows to update locally and gradually the bone tissue density of the model. Based on the minimization of the strain energy density (SED), the remodelling algorithm uses a phenomenological bone tissue mathematical law, which permits to correlate the bone apparent density with its own mechanical properties. Comparing with other numerical approaches, the advanced discretization meshless technique used in this work allows to obtain smoother and more accurate SED fields, leading to more reliable remodelling predictions.The numerical remodelling results obtained for the femoral diaphysis after the insertion of the stem are in accordance with the clinical observation and with other numerical approaches results available in the literature.