A 3d-fem Simulation of Highest Stress Lines in Mandible Fractures by Elastic Impact

Abstract

In this article, the more usual mandible fracture areas are located by identifying the highest stress lines using a three-dimensional (tetrahedral) finite element method. By taking into account the temporomandibular contact and the inertia effects, the mathematical model is considered to be a dynamic Signorini's problem, that is, a dynamic variational inequality which is discretized in time following Newmark's method. So, in each time step a stationary variational inequality is solved by a penalty-duality algorithm. Finally, some numerical results obtained by simulating the more usual fractures in the human mandible are presented and compared with clinical experimental information.

Keywords:

• Finite elements
• dynamic variational inequality
• signorini's problem
• mandible fracture

Classification Categories:

• 73D15
• 73P05
• 73T05
• 73V05

Additional information

Notes on contributors

J. M. VIAÑO

Corresponding Author: E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]