A new method for the automatic mesh generation of bone segments from CT data

A new procedure for the automatic generation of finite element meshes of bo ne segments from computed tomography (CT) data self is described. The new m ethod allows a direct automatic generation from the CT data and produces a very accurate unstructured hexahedral mesh. The accuracy of the method was established using the CT images of an artificial femur showing range of att enuation values comparable to those of a human femur. To establish the opti mal values for the parameters controlling the mesh a sensitivity analysis w as carried out using mesh-conditioning indicators. Some of the best mashes, with increasing levels of refinement, were wed to analyse the stresses ind uced in the proximal femur by single leg stance posture. The accuracy of th e meshes was evaluated using an implicit a posteriori residual-based error estimates. The number of elements with stress residuals larger than 10% of the peak stress was 7.8% using the coarsest mesh and only 1.8% with the fin est mesh. The proposed method has been proved able to conjugate full automa tion with high-quality finite element meshes. The stress predictions obtain ed wing these hexahedral-only mashes have been more accurate than those obt ained by any other automatic mesh generation algorithm. Once properly integ rated in an easy-to-use application the described method could finally make feasible many clinical applications of finite element analysis.