2018/01/11 by Bahareh Momenan, Momenan, Bahareh, Michel R. Labrosse +1
Engineering · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Elasticity and Material Modeling #Cellular Mechanics and Interactions #Connective tissue disorders research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1801.04029
For the finite element simulation of thin soft biological tissues in\ndynamics, shell elements, compared to volume elements, can capture the whole\ntissue thickness at once, and feature larger critical time steps. However, the\ncapabilities of existing shell elements to account for irregular geometries,\nand hyperelastic, anisotropic 3D deformations characteristic of soft tissues\nare still limited. As improvement, we developed a new general nonlinear thick\ncontinuum-based (CB) shell finite element (FE) based on the Mindlin-Reissner\nshell theory, with large bending, large distortion and large strain\ncapabilities, embedded in the updated Lagrangian formulation and explicit time\nintegration. We performed numerical benchmark experiments available from the\nliterature that focus on engineering linear elastic materials, which, verified\nand proved the new thick CB shell FE to: 1) be accurate an efficient 2) be\npowerful in handling large 3D deformations, curved geometries, 3) accommodate\ncoarse distorted meshes, and 4) achieve comparatively fast computational times.\nThe new element was also insensitive to three types of locking (shear, membrane\nand volumetric), and warping effects. The capabilities of the present thick CB\nshell FE in the biomedical realm are illustrated in a companion article (Part\n2), in which anisotropic incompressible hyperelastic constitutive relations are\nimplemented and verified.\n