Cases

Mimics and Abaqus revolutionize cardiac device & orthopaedic design by analyzing real patient geometries

A growing number of companies are adopting Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to answer important product development questions. How well does my product design work relative to design requirements? How can I improve it, and does my manufacturing process generate the parts I want? The success of FEA depends upon the analyst's experience, model complexity, assumptions, materials, and many other variables. Together, Mimics and Abaqus software provide a solution for the successful analysis of complex anatomical geometries. Here we describe some test cases that were presented at the Abaqus Central user group meeting. They illustrate how easily you can perform accurate, patient-specific biomedical analysis to support product development.

Anatomical structures ready for FEA in hours instead of weeks

Mimics is a powerful, user-friendly medical imaging software that enables users to generate surface meshes from CT or MRI images quickly. The resulting meshes are directly transformable into volume meshes for Abaqus. Mimics reduces the conversion time of complex structures (like veins or bones) into FEA models from weeks to hours.

Accurate, patient specific biomedical analysis

Researchers commonly use simplified model geometries for FEA because they don't relish the lengthy geometry preparation time for scanned data and/or the unmanageable complexity of the results. Thanks to Mimics, these annoyances belong to the past! You can easily analyze real, patient-specific geometry, such as stent deployment analysis.

The large reduction in geometry preparation time makes it possible to calculate real vessel geometry and accurately determine the loading (pulsatile load, bending load, or combined pulsatile bending load) the stent will endure. In addition, it opens up the possibility of performing an analysis on both a pre-op and a post-op scan to determine the result of an intervention. It also provides precious information during the research and development phase of new devices.

The most optimal input for FEA

The accuracy of an analysis depends greatly on the quality of the mesh and of the material assignment. Mimics offers an automated mesh optimization process, resulting in a mesh that is directly transformable to a high-quality volume mesh compatible to Abaqus software. You can assign materials to this mesh based on the Hounsfield units in the scanned images. This way Mimics technology ensures that you can provide the most optimal, realistic input for FEA.

In orthopaedics, bone density is essential information to performing correct FEA. Mimics material assignment enables you to use models of very high integrity for studying dental or spinal implant placement.

In a nutshell:
Mimics reduces the conversion time of complex structures (like veins or bones) into FEA models from weeks to hours. The large reduction in geometry preparation time makes it possible to perform analyses on real anatomical geometry. This offers priceless information during the research and development phase of new devices and opens the door to advanced diagnostic analysis on patient specific datasets.