SkullmechanicssimulationswiththeprototypeSimBioenvironment.docVIP

Skull mechanics simulations with the prototype SimBio environment U. Hartmann1, F. Kruggel2, T. Hierl3, G. Lonsdale1, R. Kl?ppel4 1CC Research Labs, NEC Europe Ltd., Rathausallee 10, 53757 St. Augustin, GERMANY 2Max-Planck-Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Stephanstra?e 1 04103 Leipzig, GERMANY 3University of Leipzig, Department of Oral Maxillofacial Plastic Surgery Nürnberger Stra?e 57, 04103 Leipzig, GERMANY 4University of Leipzig, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Liebigstr. 22, 04103 Leipzig, GERMANY Abstract The SimBio project will produce a generic simulation environment for advanced clinical practice designed for execution on parallel and distributed computing systems. This paper deals with the specific application of current SimBio software components for the study of a skull mechanics problem relating to maxillo-facial surgery. In addition to a demonstration of physical results, performance characteristics of the bio-mechanical finite element code on parallel platforms is given. Keywords: FEM, CT, SimBio, computational biomechanics, maxillofacial surgery, head model 1. Introduction The objective of the SimBio project [1, 2] financed by the European Commission’s Information Societies Technology (IST) programme is the improvement of clinical and medical practices by the use of numerical simulation. This goal is achieved by developing a generic simulation environment that enables users to develop application specific tools for many medical areas. The potential impact is demonstrated for specific areas through the SimBio evaluation validation applications. A key feature in the SimBio project is the possibility to use individual patient data as input to the modelling and simulation process - in contrast to simulation based on “generic” computational models. In order to meet the computational demands of the SimBio applications, the compute-intensive environment components is implemented on High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms. This paper present