Discrete IsoGeometric Analysis
Project description
The Discrete-IGA project will develop an innovative approach to overcome a major difficulty associated with engineering analysis: the aim is to provide a revolutionary way to process the ill-conditioned geometrical inputs that are a recurring obstacle in modeling complex and heterogeneous geometries.
Discrete-IGA consists of a vast inter-university project that involves both the Université de Liège (ULG) and the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) and that targets two applications in emerging scientific domains: self-healing metallic systems and biological heterogeneous microarchitectures. However the Mechanics of Biological and Bioinspired Materials Laboratory (MBBM) will only deal with aspects related to biological materials, in particular dealing with the trabecular bone.
Trabecular bone is a porous type of bone of high clinical relevance, being the main target of osteoporosis, the most widespread bone disease, which leads to bone fractures by modifying bone microstructure and material properties. Trabecular bone has a complex anisotropic microstructure featuring a network of small beams (trabeculae). Furthermore, individual trabeculae cannot be considered homogeneous as, due to bone remodelling and mineralization, they are composed of several discrete “bone packets”, with different sizes, mineral content, stiffness and strength. Such heterogeneity (both in microstructure and material) is a remarkable feature that provides healthy trabecular bone with high damage resistance. However, it is surprising that state-of-the-art computational approaches to predict the mechanical properties of trabecular bone (especially failure) often disregard tissue heterogeneity, due to the huge computational efforts required.
The Discrete-IGA project will then propose a new computational strategy, a discrete IsoGeometric Approach, which will be informed by state of the art experimental approaches at multiple length scales, to simulate damage propagation on human trabecular bone microstructures from clinically relevant locations.
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