FEAEvaluationofStepSize
Evaluating the Effect of Manual Step-Size Control During Implicit Finite Element Evaluations of Novel Humeral Prosthetic Designs
Presenting Author: David E. Cunningham
Purpose
In the evaluation of orthopaedic prostheses, analysis is mostly completed using the settings and methods of previous works. However, as new computational methods continue to be explored, an important topic to cover in the optimization of implicit finite element analyses is the effect of time-step size on the accuracy of the analysis. This effort is in an attempt to identify whether or not manual time-step control is a viable possibility in the evaluation of orthopaedic prosthetics.
Description
Exibited below are a variety of plots for the purposes of providing an interactive method by which our data might be futher explored.
*Need to update with generic implant.
Fig 1: 3D interactive plot of the bone/implant micromotion exeprienced by a stemless humeral prosthetic during a 173.2 [N] compressive load.
Fig 2: Agreeement between automatic solver and manual step-size solutions during the evaluation of micromotion in a novel stemless humeral prosthetic.
Fig 3: Effect of time step-size on the total computational time required for solution during the evalaution of micromotion in a novel stemless humeral prosthetic.
Fig 4: Computational time reductions as a result of implementing a plan-rerun approach at varying input force magnitudes.
Conclusion
This study revealed a significant decrease in the computational resources required for full analysis of fixation of orthopaedic implants when a pre-planning approach is applied to existing finite element evaluating approaches. The results of this work reflect it a currently underused method by which computational time may be decreased for large sample sizes undergoing similar loading conditions in the field of orthopaedics.