Growing multiblock structures: a semi-automated approach to block placement for multiblock hexahedral meshing

Area of Science:

• Orthopaedic Biomechanics
• Computational Mechanics
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Finite element (FE) analysis is crucial in orthopaedic biomechanics research.
• Subject-specific FE models are generated from 3D medical imaging.
• Manual hexahedral meshing is a time-consuming bottleneck in FE model development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an automated algorithm for generating multiblock structures for hexahedral mesh generation.
• To reduce the time and manual effort required for finite element model development.
• To enable automatic generation of multiblock structures based on a surface's geometric centreline.

Main Methods:

• Developed an algorithm utilizing angular analysis of a 3D surface's geometric centreline.
• Algorithm uses user-defined points and parameters to automatically generate multiblock structures.
• Applied the algorithm to 47 diverse bone geometries for mesh generation.

Main Results:

• Successfully generated multiblock structures and FE meshes for all 47 tested bone geometries.
• The automated approach significantly reduces the time required for FE model development.
• Demonstrated the algorithm's capability to handle a wide range of geometric variations.

Conclusions:

• The proposed algorithm offers a significant advancement in automating multiblock structure generation for FE analysis.
• This method effectively streamlines the creation of subject-specific FE models in orthopaedic biomechanics.
• The approach is robust and applicable to various bone geometries, enhancing research efficiency.