This paper on "Automeshers Applied to the Human Femur Shape" was presented at the NAFEMS World Congress on Design, Simulation & Optimisation: Reliability & Applicability of Computational Methods - 9-11 April 1997, Stuttgart, Germany.

Abstract

The aim of this study is to evaluate, among five methods for automating mesh generation (AMG), which presents the best behaviour when used to mesh a human femur. The five AMG methods considered here are: mapped, which provides hexahedral elements through a direct mapping of the element onto the geometry; tetra, which generates tetrahedral elements from a solid model (solid tetra) or a triangles skin (tria tetra) of the object geometry; voxel which builds hexaedral elements directly from CT images; and hexar that automatically generated hexaedral elements from a surface definition of the femur geometry. A first study based on a simplified geometric model showed that only the mapped and hexar methods are able to reliably produce a mesh with the required accuracy. Only these two methods were used to validate the finite elements models. Both methods presented a satisfactory accuracy, although the mapped method is semi-automated and time consuming.