Table Of ContentTHEORETICAL
BIOMECHANICS
Edited by Vaclav Klika
Theoretical Biomechanics
Edited by Vaclav Klika
Published by InTech
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First published October, 2011
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Theoretical Biomechanics, Edited by Vaclav Klika
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Contents
Preface IX
Part 1 General Notes on Biomechanics and Mechanobiology 1
Chapter 1 Mechanical Properties of Living Cells and Tissues
Related to Thermodynamics, Experiments and
Quantitative Morphology – A Review 3
Miroslav Holeček, Petra Kochová and Zbyněk Tonar
Chapter 2 Mechanobiology of Fracture Healing: Basic Principles and
Applications in Orthodontics and Orthopaedics 21
Antonio Boccaccio and Carmine Pappalettere
Chapter 3 Evolution of Locomotor Trends in Extinct
Terrestrial Giants Affected by Body Mass 49
Valery B. Kokshenev and Per Christiansen
Part 2 Biomechanical Modelling 75
Chapter 4 Functional Data Analysis for Biomechanics 77
Elizabeth Crane, David Childers, Geoffrey Gerstner
and Edward Rothman
Chapter 5 Biomechanical Computer Models 93
K. Engel, R. Herpers and U. Hartmann
Chapter 6 Biomechanics and Modeling of Skeletal Soft Tissues 113
Rami K. Korhonen and Simo Saarakkala
Chapter 7 Biomechanical Models of Endodontic Restorations 133
Antonio Pérez-González, Carmen González-Lluch, Joaquín L.
Sancho-Bru, Pablo J. Rodríguez-Cervantes and José L. Iserte-Vilar
Chapter 8 Development and Validation of a Three-Dimensional
Biomechanical Model of the Lower Extremity 161
Shihab Asfour and Moataz Eltoukhy
VI Contents
Chapter 9 Feasible Simulation of Diseases Related to Bone
Remodelling and of Their Treatment 187
Václav Klika and František Maršík
Chapter 10 Towards a Realistic and Self-Contained
Biomechanical Model of the Hand 211
Joaquín L. Sancho-Bru, Antonio Pérez-González,
Marta C. Mora, Beatriz E. León, Margarita Vergara, José L. Iserte,
Pablo J. Rodríguez-Cervantes and Antonio Morales
Part 3 Locomotion and Joint Biomechanics 241
Chapter 11 Estimating Lower Limb Skeletal Loading 243
Timo Rantalainen and Adam Kłodowski
Chapter 12 Physical Insights Into Dynamic Similarity in Animal
Locomotion. I. Theoretical Principles and Concepts 267
Valery B. Kokshenev
Chapter 13 Physical Insights Into Dynamic Similarity in
Animal Locomotion. II. Observation of
Continues Similarity States 285
Valery B. Kokshenev
Chapter 14 Induced Acceleration Analysis of Three-Dimensional
Multi-Joint Movements and Its Application
to Sports Movements 303
Masaya Hirashima
Chapter 15 Stability During Arboreal Locomotion 319
Andrew R. Lammers and Ulrich Zurcher
Chapter 16 Biomechanical Assessments in Sports and Ergonomics 335
Pascal Madeleine, Afshin Samani, Mark de Zee and Uwe Kersting
Chapter 17 The Biomechanics of the Anterior Cruciate
Ligament and Its Reconstruction 361
Christopher D. S. Jones and Paul N. Grimshaw
Chapter 18 Biomechanics of the Neck 385
Haibin Chen, Liying Zhang, Zhengguo Wang,
King H. Yang and Albert I. King
Preface
During last couple of years there has been an increasing recognition, that problems
arising in biology or related to medicine, really need a multidisciplinary approach.
One simply cannot treat evolving and adapting living tissues as rigid rods or as a
material with some inner structure. Although they do bring some insight into the
treated problem, it remains a rather limited source of understanding.
For this reason some special branches of both applied theoretical physics and
mathematics have recently emerged such as biomechanics, mechanobiology,
mathematical biology, biothermodynamics. The ultimate goal of all these approaches
and models is to help in clinical applications, to improve medicine. This is actually a
very long process to follow, with many intermediate steps involving many approaches
and specialists, as for example experts in theoretical biomechanics and mathematical
modelling, biologists, and finally clinicians. It was intended to preserve generality in
the modelling and viewpoints of problems related to biomechanics. The same holds
for its applications. In this book, Theoretical Biomechanics, we can find contributions
from experts from all mentioned backgrounds and viewpoints but with focus on
theoretical aspects of this research. As such, it tries to evoke and trigger the needed
discussion over those quite different approaches being used and hopefully to bring
more understanding for them. It also offers an overview of methods available from
quite different perspectives, and hopefully will find a wide audience from all above
mentioned expertises.
This book, Theoretical Biomechanics, comprises from theoretical contributions in
Biomechanics often providing hypothesis, reasoning or rationale for a given
phenomenon that experiment or clinical study cannot provide. Namely, the first
section called General Notes on Biomechanics and Mechanobiology starts with a review
chapter on mechanical properties of living cells and tissues from various perspectives
from physics such as free-energy formulation based on microscopic characteristics of a
given tissue (thermodynamics), mechanics of a cell when treated as a physical system,
and tensegrity theory. The following chapter is devoted to mechanobiology of fracture
healing providing spatial and also temporal predictions in tissue differentiation within
a fracture site. The third chapter in this section comments on evolution of locomotor
trends in extinct terrestrial giants and offers a possible explanation to accommodation
of long bones based on a safety factor herein defined. The second section, Biomechanical
X Preface
Modelling, is devoted to the rapidly growing field of various biomechanical models
and modelling approaches to improve our understanding about all kinds of processes
in human body. In the beginning, a Functional Data Analysis technique is introduced
as a possible and complex statistical tool for analysis of large quantities of
experimental data. Further, a review chapter of computational biomechanical models
is given (several examples of sophisticated finite element models of human body parts
are provided) together with a description of whole chain of necessary tools for
individualising the model such as image acquisition and processing, mesh generation.
This is followed by a review chapter on typical modelling techniques used in soft
tissue biomechanics such as fiber reinforced material’s models and similarly a
contribution about computational finite elements models and their role in
endodontics. Three concrete models of important phenomena found in humans or
human body parts follow: biomechanical model of lower extremity,
biothermodynamical model of bone remodelling, and a robotical biomechanical model
of a hand. The last section called Locomotion and Joint Biomechanics, is a collection of
works on description and analysis of human locomotion and joint stability and acting
forces. The first chapter describes available and commonly used methods for
assessment of loading forces on lower limbs (reaction forces, inverse dynamics,
forward dynamics), compares them and discusses their limitations. The next two
chapters are discussing a possible explanation of quite striking generalizations about
the dynamic similarity in gaits of locomotion of different-sized animals. The following
chapter provides an analysis of three-dimensional joint movements enabling
determination of a cause-and-effect relationship in joint torques and movements
which is of high importance for high-performance athletes. The next contribution is
discussing biomechanical means of assuring stability in arboreal locomotion. Sixth
chapter in this section provides a review of biomechanical assessment techniques of
human movement including electromyography, kinetic and kinematic recordings
which is followed by a review of anterior cruciate ligament together with development
of a suitable ligament substitute. The last chapter is devoted to biomechanical
characteristics of neck followed by several models for injury mechanisms and
tolerance are presented.
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Czech Technical University
in Prague (CTU) as well as Institute of Thermomechanics, Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic (IT AS CR) for their support. My thanks also go to prof. František
Maršík from the Department of Thermodynamics at IT AS CR and to my family.
Asst. Prof. Dr. Vaclav Klika
Dept. of Mathematics
FNSPE Czech Technical University in Prague
Czech Republic
