VIRTUAL COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE USE OF NAILS AT THE FIXATION OF TIBIAL FRACTURES USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

Tibial shaft fractures are the more frequent fractures of lower limb. For this purpose was used a CAD parametric software which permits to define models with a high degree of difficulty. First, were defined the main bone components as tibia using CT images. These images were transferred to AutoCAD where the outer and inner contours of the bone were approximate to polygonal lines composed by many segments. These contours were transferred to SolidWorks where, step by step, and section by section, was defined the virtual tibia. At the first t ime the tibia was complete and, after that, was divided in 2, 3 or more components to simulate different types of fractures. Using the direct measurement method were generated the virtual metallic components as nail and orthopedic screws. All these virtual components were combined to obtain four cases of tibia fractures studies. The virtual models were exported to a software for kinematical and FEA simulation. Using similar initial parameters for each studied case (as total force and torque)were obtained dynamic maps of stress, strain and displacement. These results were analyzed and compared and, in the final, were extracted important conclusions.