Computer-aided engineering (CAE) has improved design and development processes in industries as diverse as aerospace, green energy, and high-tech devices. However, nowhere does CAE have a more direct impact on quality of life than in the life sciences.

During my time as a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, and CAE simulation engineer, I have had numerous opportunities to use finite element analysis (FEA) along with multibody dynamics (MBD) solutions in life science applications. It can be used to guide designers, doctors, and engineers as they search for solutions to human problems. As I will show in this article, when advanced simulation technology is combined with the right research, it can improve comfort, reduce injury, and even save lives.

1. Consumer goods.

Consumer Goods Example 1: Foam Bed Optimization

We worked with one of our clients to optimize the foam density for a mattress. In this study, we used Isight’s built-in nonlinear sequential quadratic programming algorithm to determine the optimum structural stiffness of the foam, with the goal of creating a mattress that would provide greater comfort and more restful sleep for buyers.

Consumer Goods Example 2: Insole Study

We were looking for ways to predict stress at the interface between foot and shoe (i.e., plantar stress) which is known to play an important role in the development of foot ulcers in diabetic patients. Our task was to study the effect of insole-to-midsole heel height on the plantar stress using a finite element (FE) model in order to find the best ratio of height between the two, with the goal of identifying the optimum thickness for each.

We developed a nonlinear, axisymmetric, two-dimensional model of a human heel-shoe in Abaqus/CAE, and assigned a nonlinear foam material to the insole and midsole geometries. We changed the insole and midsole thickness accordingly using Isight, while we estimated the plantar stress by measuring the predicted maximum contact pressure between the heel and the insole to find out which iteration provided minimum stress.

Using similar methodologies, we could apply these tools to identify the key performance indicators for a variety of consumer good applications, with the ability to obtain analytical output quantities from simulation.

2. Athletic and military training programs.

FEA simulations aren’t only used for product design. In fact, because the models are designed to simulate the human body, they can be used to understand the effect of training programs or lifestyle habits on physical fitness. These include simulations that measure the influences of repetitive movements on the body, or how bone and soft tissue might be strained or strengthened under certain conditions.

Training Example 1: Exercise Machine Linkage

Many people turn to exercise machines as a central part of their physical fitness routine. On a recent project, we worked with a client to generate a design for a fitness machine that was lighter, provided increased stiffness performance, and felt more fluid to the user (i.e. reduced rotational inertia effects). Our optimization approach, using Tosca Structure, was specifically tailored to the design goals associated with the linkage. After mastering the optimized (organic) shape in CAD, the design was validated by FEA to confirm the final geometry.

Training Example 2: Load Carriage on Tibia Bone Strength

As part of my doctoral research I co-authored a study examining the influences of load carriage and physical activity on tibia bone strength. This project was designed to address a problem in the military, where new recruits had a high incidence of tibia stress factors. We compared recreational basketball players to recreational runners by having each carry loads of increasing weight. We then used a combination of subject-specific multibody musculoskeletal simulations and an FE model of the tibial bone to measure bone strain and the rate of strain. The results of this study showed that the varied, multidirectional training of the basketball players make them more resilient to load bearing than that of the recreational runners.

While this study had applications for the military, similar studies could also be applied to athletic programs. In elite sports programs, where an injured player can cost a league millions of dollars in lost talent, simulations that can identify more effective training regimens can save athletic programs financially, while also leading to healthier athletes.

These examples illustrate how FEA simulations could be used in similar applications, such as physiotherapy, to help doctors and physical trainers find more effective treatments for patients as they recover from an injury.

3. Medical device companies.

Medical devices are perhaps the largest group of possible applications for life sciences simulation. This group comprises external devices, such as braces or prosthetics, implanted devices such as heart monitors or artificial hips, and medical equipment, such as the cardiopulmonary bypass pumps used in open heart surgery.

Medical Device Example 1: Wheelchair and Hospital Chair Drop Test

Using a detailed FE model during a drop test simulation, we were able to optimize the strength and structural weight of a wheelchair’s design. We ran a similar study on a hospital chair. We built a detailed FE model of the hospital chair, then correlated it to the physical test to evaluate any design improvements suggested by the engineering team.

Medical Device Example 2: EMS Cot Performance Load Fastener

We worked with the design team of an OEM for EMS cots to perform front, side, rear, and top crash test simulations using Abaqus Unified FEA. We focused on the locking mechanism of the cot to the ambulance, using the analysis to drive design changes and enhancements. These included an optimization of the effort of the current carry over components on the cot to try to find lightweight solutions with enhanced load carrying capabilities, as well as FE models of a redesigned cot for future development.

Medical Device Example 3: Hospital Bed Comfort Design

For this project, we partnered with a hospital bed manufacturer to design pneumatic bags that would reduce bed sores and enhance patient comfort. We did this, again, using Abaqus Unified FEA for highly nonlinear structural simulation of soft materials in high deformation.

Medical Device Example 4: Blood Flow Simulation

In this project, we simulated blood flow paths through two different pipe assembly configurations for transfusion machines and blood platelet separators. Because poor recirculation can lead to clotting, it was our goal to find a configuration that would reduce undesired flows and turbulence. By performing an A/B study for each assembly we compared the predicted pressure, turbulence energy, and velocity, as experienced by the blood flow. Our simulations were able to demonstrate which configuration provided a clean laminar flow with minimum turbulence.

In each of these cases, FE simulations helped design safer devices that were easier for medical workers to use or led to increased comfort and improved health for patients. This intersection of product design and life sciences illustrates the many ways CAE can be used to improve patient outcomes.

4. Advanced research funded by hospitals or universities.

Many of the applications listed above are areas in which FEA is regularly being used to advance product development, improve health, and reduce injury. The progress already made with this research demonstrates the value of FEA alone or combined with other solutions in aiding medical research. It also highlights untapped areas of research that will benefit from advanced CAE simulations.

Advanced Research Example 1: Dental Implants

In a collaborative project with the University of Michigan, we used CAE simulations to find an optimum tightening torque for a dental implant design. We also predicted the adhesive strength using a FE model at bone/crown interfaces.

Advanced Research Example 2: Knee Biomechanics

During my postdoctoral research, I worked directly with surgeons using simulations of knee biomechanics in an MBD framework environment to help doctors determine the correct amount of external rotation of the femoral component required during TKA. Our ability to isolate bone shapes and ligaments through computational models helped us deliver better outcomes to patients and revealed a potential new surgical technique.

While these examples represent our project capabilities, new simulation tools are expanding the possibilities of this field. Recently, Dassault Systèmes collaborated with the FDA on a five-year project to create a model of a human heart. The Living Heart Project advances the cutting edge of medical research, with the potential to deliver new tools to physicians and surgeons as they plan medical treatments. Hospitals and research groups need more than access to these simulations—they need experts who can help them apply these advanced engineering solutions to their research.

Our engineering team has direct experience working on these projects.

As a field, life sciences poses both a complex subject for FEA simulation, and an exciting opportunity for advances that could have a significant impact on the health, comfort, and quality of life for people around the globe. Researchers, engineers, and product designers have access to powerful software that can simulate the bone and soft tissue of the human body, but understanding the intersection of human biology and engineering technology requires a new skillset—one that we’ve has been building for years.

We have always prided ourselves on the strength of our team. The engineers who work here possess expertise not only in creating and running complex simulations with CAE software, but also the experience of working in hospitals and with medical research teams. This allows us to undertake high-level life science projects for any number of applications.

If you are looking for an FEA partner to help you develop simulations for use cases in the life sciences field—large or small—contact us. We can discuss them with you and help you find a solution.

The simulation portfolio of 3DEXPERIENCE R2019x (including Abaqus 2019 download, fe-safe, Tosca, Xflow, CST, and Isight) is out and available to you right now!  It’s packed with new features and enhancements that will expand your analytical possibilities and make your life as an analyst easier!  My personal favorites include improved solve times in Abaqus/Explicit, hyperfoam materials in Abaqus/Standard, and new constraint options in Tosca Structure.  Exciting!

How to Download

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What’s New

Abaqus

The Abaqus Unified FEA product suite offers powerful and complete solutions for both routine and sophisticated engineering problems covering a vast spectrum of industrial applications.

What’s New

Material and element enhancements

• A new 2nd order tet element C3D10 in Abaqus/Explicit provides larger stable time increment and is more computationally efficient than the existing C3D10M element
• A new shear panel element SHEAR4 in Abaqus/Standard provides efficient modeling of reinforced thin-wall structures such as can be found in airplane fuselages
• The hyperfoam material that was previously available in Abaqus/Explicit is now also available in Abaqus/Standard. Results transfer between Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit is fully supported which enables workflows involving static preload followed by dynamic impact.
• The concrete damaged plasticity model in Explicit has been enhanced to include damage initiation and failure.

Contact enhancements

• General contact in Abaqus/Standard now supports thermal and thermal-electrical procedures.
• Initial contact stresses in Abaqus/Standard can be computed based on user-specified stress in elements underlying the contact surface.
• New contact output variables including scalar integration of contact pressure over the surface.
• The bolt contact capability in Abaqus/Standard has been enhanced to more accurately represent threads without actually meshing the thread.

Linear Dynamics enhancements

• SMP parallel processing is now supported for results recovery in mode-based procedures.
• The missing mass method is now available for use within the response spectrum procedure. A common application is earthquake engineering.
• Structural energy flow, power flow and acoustic radiated energy and power can now be computed for coupled structural-acoustic steady state dynamics.

Modeling and visualization enhancements

• Model instances can now be used with flattened input files.
• Asymmetric axisymmetric elements CAXA/SAXA are now supported within Abaqus/CAE.
• Geometry assemblies within Abaqus/CAE can be exported into the ASAT format which simplifies interoperability with 3DEXPERIENCE applications.
• Visualization of nodal tensor fields is now supported.

Other key enhancements

• Parallel scalability of Abaqus/Explicit has been significantly improved. Performance improvements approaching 50% have been observed.
• Performance of contour integral evaluation has significantly increased for large models.
• Performance of linear static load cases has been significantly improved.

Tosca

The Tosca optimization suite provides fast and powerful structural and flow optimization solutions based on FEA and CFD simulations. Tosca optimization suite consists of two products: Tosca Structure is for optimized structural designs, and Tosca Fluid provides optimized fluid flow design concepts.

What’s New

Tosca Structure

• Tosca Structure.topology
  • Faster execution using shared memory parallelization (SMP) for topology optimization using shared memory parallelization.
  • Enhanced topology optimization sensitivity filtering
    • Sensitivity filters has been enhanced and especially in combination with stress constraints or symmetry constraints are results much improved
  • Enhanced optimizer for sensitivity based optimizations
    • New implementation of the internal optimizer, Convex Separable Approximation (CSA). The optimizer is now default
  • Improved controls for overhang constraints for additive manufacturing
•  Tosca Structure.shape
  • Enabling sensitivity based shape optimization with Abaqus non-linear analysis
    • Non-linear static analysis (NLGEOM=YES, *PLASTIC, *CONTACT …)
    • Including all modeling nonlinearities as large deformations, contact and non-linear materials.
    • Stress constraints
    • Reaction force constraints, even on *COUPLING elements
    • 2D and 3D elements
    • Abaqus execution in MPI-mode
    • Better performance, especially for stress constraints
  • Enhanced manufacturing constraints for sensitivity based shape optimization supporting the following manufacturing constraints
    • Plane symmetry
    • Cyclic rotational symmetry
    • Cyclic plane symmetry
    • Stamping
    • Demold control
  • For easy restrictions of plane surfaces adjacent to the design area with RESTRICT_ON_SURFACE
  • Definition of a smooth transition zone into the design area with CHECK_TYPE = TRANSITION
  • Enhanced element correction for C3D10 elements
•  Tosca Structure.bead
  • Enabling sensitivity based bead optimization with Abaqus nonlinear analysis which replaces the “linearized” workflows
  • The Sensitivity based bead optimization now supports
    • Non-linear static analysis (NLGEOM=YES, *PLASTIC, *CONTACT …)
    • Stress constraints
    • Reaction force constraints, even on *COUPLING elements
    • Abaqus execution in MPI mode
    • Better performance
•  Tosca support in ABAQUS/CAE 2019
  • Support Abaqus sensitivities for all Tosca workflows
  • Sizing
  • Shape
  • Bead * (planned for FD release)
  • Overhang constraint topology optimization
•  Supported solver interfaces
  • Abaqus 2019
  • ANSYS® v19.0
  • MSC Nastran® 2017
  • Supported life solver interfaces
    • fe-safe 2019
    • Femfat ® 5.3

Tosca Fluid

• Tosca Fluid improved interfaces for
  • STAR-CCM+® versions: 9.02 – 13.02
  • Ansys Fluent® versions 15.0.0 – 19.0.0

fe-safe

fe-safe is a powerful, comprehensive and easy-to-use suite of software for fatigue analysis from finite element models.

What’s New

• Improved robustness of weld line definitions for solid elements
• Enhanced nodal force method for Verity weld fatigue relaxes some of the meshing requirements
• Results summary available by group, not just model as a whole
• Groups/sets created by fe-safe are written to ODB Prismatic Hull infinite life method
• Simpler plugin loading
• Ability to use more than one plugin in the same project/job
• Improved plugin identification/versioning
• Installer unified with Abaqus

Isight

Isight provides simulation process automation and design optimization solutions that enable users to reduce analysis time and costs while improving product performance, quality and reliability.

What’s New

• Isight Enhancements
  • Support copy-paste of scripts in script editors
  • New “Fetch & republish to local library” command in fipercmd
• Component Enhancements
  • Abaqus component upgrade
    • Support for Abaqus 6.14 – Abaqus 2019
  •  CATIA V5 component upgrade
    • Supports CATIA V5 R27, CATIA V5 R28, and CATIA V5 R29
  • SolidWorks component upgrade
    • SolidWorks component is enhanced to support SolidWorks 2016 SP4 through 2019 releases
• SIMULIA Execution Engine (SEE) Enhancements
  • TomEE-Microsoft SQL Server based SEE
  • Web Dashboard in TomEE-based-SEE
  • HTTPS support for Webtop and Web Dashboard in TomEE-based-SEE

CST Studio Suite

CST STUDIO SUITE allows engineers to experiment with virtual prototypes even at the earliest stages of the design process, to compare the performance of different configurations, and to optimize their products as part of end-to-end industry processes that require EM simulation.

What’s New

• General
  • CST Specialist connects CST Studio Suite with 3DEXPERIENCE and leverages the best capabilities of each. (See CST Specialist PX2 role BFS for more info)
  • Support for 3D CAD assembly design for CST Studio Suite assembly mode
  • Basic visualization of the farfield in Simulation Review app. The farfield plot is the most important KPI for antenna design and placement
  • Encryption of CST models for securely sharing data (IP protection), available for Transient Solver only
  • New Schematic Editor with strongly improved performance and usability
  • Improved Poser tool to posture human voxel models
  • System Assembly Modelling (SAM) Array Task allows post-processing optimization in full array
  • New Anchorpoint Sweep in SAM Assembly Viewer
• High Frequency
  • Support of new GPU devices: NVIDIA Tesla V100 and Quadro GV100
  • Improved HPC Cluster check for MPI simulations o Distributed Computing – Merge time improved
  • Lumped Elements Touchstone Circuits (T,F, TLM)
  • Simultaneous Excitation (F,I) o Windscreen antenna simulations: Improved setup
  • FD, TLM and Asymptotic Solver now included in Hybrid Solver (F, TLM, A)
• Low Frequency Simulation
  • 3D rotational motion (LT)
  • Support of periodic subvolumes in 3D (LT + Mstatic)
  • SAM Machine Task with several improvements
• Charged Particles
  • New E-Static PIC Solver (for slow movements, e.g. plasma)
  • Optically induced emission model (photoemission)
  • Combined E-field plots with particles
• Cable Simulation
  • Simplified definition of cable bundles in 3D
  • Easy definition of junctions between cable terminals
  • Stranded wires in TLM Solver (bi-directional coupling with cables thicker than a mesh cell)
  • Improved accuracy of lossy metals, used in cable cross section
  • Parameter sweep for random bundling
  • Running cable simulations on Linux OS (batch mode only)
• Circuit Simulation
  • New Schematic Editor with improved performance and usability
  • Excitation settings now available in ask Parameter list
  • New IBIS AMI Task
• Filter Designer
  • FD2D: improved accuracy of fast distributed models
  • FD3D: VNA based filter tuning (coupling matrix extraction from real-time measured S-parameters)
  • FD3D – New topologies for dual- and multi-mode filters
• Interference Task
  • Interactive violation matrix, directly opening EMI margin plot
  • Radio library available for download from support page
• EDA Import and PCB Simulation
  • IR and PI Result Field now use normal layout window with all selection capabilities
  • 2DTL and SI coupling limits can be determined from threshold voltage
  • IR Drop with detailed power loss and sign off reporting
  • Boardcheck: Electrical data for rules is calculated from PCB data, Hierarchical violation view
• Chip Interface
  • Cadence Virtuoso plug-in
  • Import from interconnect technology files (*.ict, *.itf)
  • Button for easy 3D-model generation

XFlow

XFlow offers particle-based Lattice-Boltzmann technology for high fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) applications as a part of SIMULIA’s Fluids Simulation portfolio.

What’s New

• Apply Volume Heat Source boundary condition and Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) boundary condition on the same solid
• Enhanced XFlow-Abaqus two-way cosimulation capability
• New XFlow-Abaqus one-way cosimulation capability for small fluid-induced structural deformations
• Improved Arbitrary Reference Frame for simulations with enforced moving bodies
• Power’By enhancements enabling the possibility to upload to numerical results of XFlow and the simulation model to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform
• Enhanced Isosurface visualization for simulations with multi resolution lattice domain
• Improved animations generator with new parameters to better control the output animation file

Caelynx will be presenting the following day in the grand ballroom on September 28th at 1:30pm. Caelynx project engineer Rob Hurlston will be presenting a project that utilized Abaqus and Tosca software. His paper is titled “Evolution of NuStep Exercise Machine Sickle Design Utilizing Tosca Optimization and Additive Manufacturing”.

“Evolution of NuStep Exercise Machine Sickle Design Utilizing Tosca Optimization and Additive Manufacturing” Von Mises stress (1,000 lb load) plotted on the original (failing) sickle (left) Tosca output (middle) and final design (right) (deformation scale factor= 20x)

• reduced efficiency
• slow product development
• human error

Isight addresses all of these issues.

Isight provides designers, engineers, and researchers with a powerful system for automating computer-aided product development processes, exploring the design space and performing parametric optimization.

Isight is an open system for integrating design and CAE simulation models. Isight is used to create flexible simulation process flows (simflows) consisting of a variety of applications/components Isight comes with a standard library of application components such as ABAQUS and CATIA as well as third party applications which are used for building simflows (see example simflow pictured to the left and below).

Within the simflow you can also add techniques, also know as drivers (i.e., Design of Experiments, Optimization, DOE, Six Sigma, Taguchi, Monte Carlo, etc.) which are used for design exploration and/or optimization.

The Isight graphic user interface, called the design gateway, allows for easy drag-and-drop process creation. Isight allows for branching and looping executions. Isight runs on a token-based system similar to ABAQUS. The number of tokens to be used for your simflow is dependent upon simflow content, simflow complexity, and parallel batch size.

The benefits of Isight are many and varied for engineers and product developers.  To start using Isight to improve efficiency, accelerate product design, and reduce manual errors, contact CATI today. We would love to give you more information about this widely used and well respected industry software.

Companies who currently use ABAQUS know that with Simulia’s Extended Tokens licensing, they already have 3-in-1 access to the Simulia products Abaqus, Tosca and Isight. With the acquisition of Safe Technology’s fe-safe, Dassault Systemes added one more code to the Extended Token product line, making it a 4-in-1 powerhouse. Abaqus 6.14 was released on July 25th 2014, incorporating fe-safe into the Extended Token bundle. While the portfolio continues to evolve and becomes even more impressive, the pricing remains the same. This extended catalog of products allows businesses to expand their CAE capabilities at no additional charge. For the price of one great piece of software, users now has access to:

ABAQUS: The first Simulia product suite, ABAQUS provides comprehensive solutions for challenging engineering problems, reducing costs and inefficiencies; consolidating tools and processes; and gaining competitive advantage. ABAQUS comes with an interactive user interface for creating models, an implicit solver, an explicit solver, and a CFD solver. Its contact and nonlinear materials and analyses capabilities are second to none, and it efficiently manages large model assemblies and allows for parallel processing. Significant performance gains are possible because ABAQUS scales well for multicore, multi GPU, HPC processing.

Isight: Isight enables engineers to automate design exploration and perform parametric optimization. Isight increases efficiency, accelerates product design, and reduces manual errors. Isight continues to provide designers, engineers, and researchers an open system for integrating design and simulation models to automate the execution of hundreds or thousands of simulations. Isight enables time saving and product improvement by optimizing against performance or cost metrics through statistical methods, such as design of experiments (DoE) or Design for Six Sigma (DoSS). Dassault Systemes introduced Extended Token licensing in July, 2012. The initial release of Extended Token licensing included access to ABAQUS and Isight using a common token pool.

Tosca: In November 2013 Dassault Systemes expanded Extended Token licensing by including Tosca, an optimization suite consisting of Tosca Structure and Tosca Fluid. Tosca enables engineers to take complete advantage of any improvement potential while leveraging advanced simulation capabilities. Tosca creates optimized design concepts to achieve the highest performance, quality, and light weighting in an abbreviated development time.

• Tosca Structure includes optimization for topology, shape, sizing, bead, and morph
• Tosca Fluid addresses the design and optimization of fluid flow systems

fe-safe: In July 2014 Extended Token licensing was again expanded, this time with fe-safe. Fe-safe is a durability analysis software designed for fatigue analysis of finite element models. Fe-safe is fast, accurate, and easy to use. It fits smoothly into the design process, enabling users to develop products that are designed for durability. Fe-safe is used for:

• estimating warranty claims curves based on probabilities of failure
• producing contour plots to reveal fatigue life and crack sites
• identifying non-critical loads at significant points on a model in order to design physical tests using fewer loads and fewer actuators

Dassault Systemes recently acquired SIMPACK. SIMPACK is a general purpose, multi-body dynamics simulation software used for the dynamic analysis of any mechanical or mechatronic system. It enables engineers to generate and solve virtual 3D models in order to predict and visualize motion, coupling forces, and stresses.

Currently SIMPACK is not part of Simulia’s Extended Token licensing. However, SIMPACK will soon be available to purchase as a stand-alone product. It’s never been a better time for great value on powerful engineering software.