A Study on the Suitability of Constant Boundary Elements for the Simulation of Biological Organs †

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Engineering Proceedings

Abstract

In the process of designing of surgical simulators, it may be a requirement to simulate biological organs in real-time. About thirty computations per second are required for achieving real-time graphics. Hence, computational techniques employed to simulate biological organs in real-time should be able to perform about thirty computations per second. The computational techniques employed should be fast enough, but at the same time should be accurate enough to realistically simulate the biological organs which are inherently nonlinear. A numerical technique called the Boundary Element Method (BEM) is generally thought of as being faster when one compares the technique with some well-established numerical techniques like the Finite Element Method (FEM). This technique (BEM) is even faster if constant boundary elements are employed. However, the BEM is mostly used to simulate linear behavior, whereas the FEM is more established for simulating nonlinear behavior. The present work investigates whether biological organs may be simulated by using the linear BEM. The reason nonlinear BEM has not been used is that the nonlinear BEM is quite slow and difficult to implement. A human kidney is the biological organ considered in this work. A nonlinear analysis and a linear analysis are carried out on the kidney. A nonlinear analysis is carried out by using the FEM, whereas the linear analysis is carried out by using the BEM. Results from the nonlinear analysis are compared with the results from the linear analysis. The results indicate that there is good agreement between the results from the linear BEM and the nonlinear FEM many times, but there is considerable difference between the results other times. Although the results reinforce the idea that the BEM could be a useful tool while simulating biological organs, further research is needed to definitively say whether the results given by the linear BEM, which uses constant boundary elements, are always good enough for simulating biological organs.

DOI

10.3390/engproc2023059169

Publication Date

1-1-2023

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