A backward pre-stressing algorithm for efficient finite element implementation of in vivo material and geometrical parameters into fibril-reinforced mixture models of articular cartilage. (February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sajjadinia, Seyed Shayan; Carpentieri, Bruno; Holzapfel, Gerhard A.
• Is Part Of: Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials. Volume 114(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-02
• Subjects: Simulation -- Inverse finite element analysis -- Articular cartilage mixtures -- Pre-stress; Biomedical materials -- Periodicals; Biomedical materials -- Mechanical properties -- Periodicals; Biomedical materials; Biomedical materials -- Mechanical properties; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 610.28
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2020.104203
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1751-6161

Abstract

Abstract: Classical continuum mechanics has been widely used for implementation of the material models of articular cartilage (AC) mainly with the aid of the finite element (FE) method, which, in many cases, considers the stress-free configuration as the initial configuration. On the contrary, the AC experimental tests typically begin with the pre-stressed state of both material and geometrical properties. Indeed, imposing the initial pre-stress onto AC models with the in vivo values as the initial state would result in nonphysiologically expansion of the FE mesh due to the soft nature of AC. This change in the model configuration can also affect the material behavior kinematically in the mixture models of cartilage due to the intrinsic compressibility of the tissue. Although several different fixed-point backward algorithms, as the most straightforward pre-stressing methods, have already been developed to incorporate these initial conditions into FE models iteratively, such methods focused merely on the geometrical parameters, and they omitted the material variations of the anisotropic mixture models of AC. To address this issue, we propose an efficient algorithm generalizing the backward schemes to restore stress-free conditions by optimizing both the involving variables, and we hypothesize that it can affect the results considerably. To this end, a comparative simulation was implemented on an advanced and validated multiphasic model by the new and conventional algorithms. The results are in support of the hypothesis, as in our illustrative general AC model, the material parameters experienced a maximum error of 16% comparing to the initial in vivo data when the older algorithm was employed, and it led to a maximum variation of 44% in the recorded stresses comparing to the results of the new method. We conclude that our methodology enhanced the model fidelity, and it is applicable in most of the existing FE solvers for future mixture studies with accurate stress distributions. Graphical abstract: Image 1 Highlights: Proposing a pre-stressing algorithm to incorporate all the in vivo states. Implementing an anisotropic cartilage mixture to reveal the pre-stressing effects. Comparing the proposed scheme with a more conventional algorithm. Simulating a compression test to study the effects on each cartilage phase. The results were affected significantly by the new pre-stressing algorithm.