Post Doctoral Research Associate Chiara Silvetri recently published an article titled “Investigation of LS-DYNA® Modeling for Active Muscle Tissues that appeared in the EA Information Engineering Journal newsletter.
Abstract:
This study is aimed at investigating and comparing one-dimensional and three-dimensional finite element models of active muscle tissue. Skeletal muscle is a very complicated biological structure to model due to its non-homogenous and non-linear material properties as well as its complex geometry. Additionally, forces generated from muscle activation are directly related to the muscle length and contraction velocity. Finite element discrete Hill-based elements are laregely used to simulate muscles in both passive and active states. There are, however, several shortfalls to utilizing one-dimensional elements, such as the impossibility to represent muscle physical mass and complex lines of action.
Read the full article in the April 2011 edition of the FEA newsletter.