A novel finite element method based biomechanical model for HIT-robot assisted orthopedic surgery system

To build a biomechanical human model can make much sense for surgical training and surgical rehearse. Especially, it will be more meaningful to develop a biomechanical model to guide the control strategy for the medical robots in HIT-Robot Assisted Orthopedic Surgery System (HIT-RAOS). In this paper, based the successful work of others, a novel reliable finite element method based biomechanical model for HIT-RAOS was developed to simulate the force needed in reposition procedure. Geometrical model was obtained from 3D reconstruction from CT images of a just died man. Using this boundary information, the finite element model of the leg including part of femur, broken upper tibia, broken lower tibia, talus, calcaneus, Kirschner nail, muscles and other soft tissues was created in ANSYS. Furthermore, as it was too difficult to reconstruct the accurate geometry model from CT images, a new simplified muscle model was presented. The bony structures and tendons were defined as linearly elastic, while soft tissues and muscle fibers were assumed to be hyper elastic. To validate this model, the same dead man was involved to simulate the patient, and a set of data of the force needed to separate the two broken bones and the distance between them in reposition procedure was recorded. Then, another set of data was acquired from the finite element analysis. After comparison, the two sets of data matched well. The Finite Element model was proved to be acceptable.