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Updated: Aug 5, 2026
Subject-specific Musculoskeletal Model for Studying Bone Strain During Dynamic Motion
Published on: April 11, 2018
Intrabiofidelity: A Methodological Proposal to Simulate the Internal Trabecular Structure of Bone Tissue in Finite
Rodrigo Arturo Marquet-Rivera1,2, Jesús Alejandro Serrato-Pedrosa3, Verónica Loera-Castañeda3
1Escuela Superior de Comercio y Administración Unidad Tepepan, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Anillo Periférico Sur Manuel Gómez Morín 4863, Colonia Ampliación Tepepan, Alcaldía Coyoacán, Ciudad de México 16020, Mexico.
This study introduces intrabiofidelity, a new metric for biomodel accuracy, using MRI data to represent internal bone structure. Incorporating intrabiofidelity significantly alters stress distribution in computational models, enhancing biomechanical analysis.
Area of Science:
- Computational Biomechanics
- Biomaterials Science
- Medical Imaging Analysis
Background:
- Current biomodels often lack internal tissue architecture detail, limiting biomechanical accuracy.
- Micro-finite element (μFE) analysis for bone is computationally intensive and workflow-complex.
- High-fidelity biomodels require methods to represent complex internal morphologies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce and define 'intrabiofidelity' as a descriptor for biomodel internal morphology reproduction.
- To present a reproducible workflow for integrating macro-scale internal bone architecture into biomodels.
- To evaluate the impact of intrabiofidelity on stress distribution in a knee biomodel.
Main Methods:
- Developed a pipeline using ScanIP, SolidWorks, and ANSYS for MRI data segmentation and biomodel creation.
- Extracted macro-scale trabecular bone architecture from distal femur cancellous bone.
- Performed finite element analysis comparing models with and without intrabiofidelity under simulated load.
Main Results:
- Intrabiofidelity significantly redistributed stress: trabecular peak stress increased 4.5-fold, cortical peak stress decreased 18.3%.
- Volume-averaged stress remained largely unchanged, indicating local stress concentration effects.
- Principal stress analysis showed a shift from compressive to mixed compressive/tensile states in trabecular bone.
Conclusions:
- The proposed methodology offers an accessible workflow for incorporating internal bone architecture using standard MRI and FEA software.
- Intrabiofidelity is a valuable taxonomic descriptor for assessing biomodel fidelity, aiding teaching and documentation.
- This approach enhances the accuracy of computational biomechanical analyses by accounting for tissue-level morphology.
