2017 Project of the Year: Jury Winner, Kyle Snethen
‘Project of the Year’ is an annual contest held by Dassault Systèmes where students from around the world are invited to submit projects created with Dassault Systèmes products and software. Winners are chosen by votes from Facebook users and an overall winner is chosen by a jury at Dassault Systèmes headquarters.
SIMULIA Academia Programs Specialist, Ann Wodziak, conducted the first interview below with the Jury winner for this year (2017), Kyle Snethen. Kyle used Abaqus for his project, “Predicting Clinical Outcomes in TKR.”
Why did you chose this topic for your project?
Advances in intraoperative technology used during orthopaedic procedures are providing data previously unavailable; however, there are still limitations in acquiring key metrics to better inform surgeries. This workflow utilizes this available data and provides quantification of these unknown metrics. In my specific project, we applied kinematics collected during surgery to a finite element (FE) model in order to simulate assessments surgeons perform during total knee replacement (TKR) procedures and predict ligament tensions; a known critical factor to successful TKR function.
Describe how you executed the simulations.
The dynamic simulations were executed in Abaqus/Explicit. The bone anatomy and TKR components were meshed with rigid elements and the knee ligaments were modeled with point-to-point connector elements. The force-displacement behavior applied to the elastic behavior of these connector elements were representative of the nonlinear behavior exhibited by knee ligaments and other soft tissue structures. The knee kinematics were applied as essentially displacement boundary conditions in order to drive the simulations.
Were there any key technical challenges you encountered? How did you solve them?
Validation of a knee model is always challenging and requires detailed information on the knee specimen being modeled as well as appropriate experimental data. In this project, the ligament parameters defining their nonlinear behavior were calibrated against experimental data on the same cadaver knee specimen; thus, providing specimen-specific ligament properties and aiding the validation process. Furthermore, the required anatomical data of the knee specimen was provided through the open source database SimTK.org.
What were the advantages of using simulation in your project?
Using a computational model to simulate the intraoperative assessments allowed for the quantification of ligament tensions, which is currently not directly measured during surgery, and very difficult to accomplish in vitro.
Why did you choose Abaqus?
Abaqus has been a proven FE solver for validating knee models, and allows for the incorporation of nonlinear ligament behavior as well as for joint geometry articulation (i.e., conformity between contacting surfaces) to contribute to joint constraint as opposed to a simplified joint representation (e.g., hinge).
Has learning simulation skills provided you with an advantage in your career?
Absolutely. In particular, learning the process of properly validating model simulations will be very valuable moving forward in my career, for as I face new modeling projects exercising good modeling practices will always be essential.
Is there anything else we should know about this project?
Although computational modeling has become a common tool in analyzing biomechanics of implanted systems, linking the model outputs to clinical outcomes has not been as prevalent. In this project, the access to unique clinical data has allowed for an integrated computational framework where in vivo information can be used to inform modeling decisions and model outputs can be compared directly to clinical outcomes.
Do you have a website and/or Facebook page we can promote?
This is the webpage for our lab.
To read the full submission of Kyle’s project, click here.
