3D Model of Injured Skull and Finite Element Analysis

A head injury is any trauma that causes damage to the scalp, skull, or brain. The injuries can range from a minor bump on the skull to serious brain injury. The prosthesis of the skull may be developed to assist the function of the defected area. The prosthesis may be made from different materials based on biocompatibility. The type of biomaterial to be used is decided by the doctor. This 3D model of injured skull plays a major role for the doctors to make a clear decision. In this project, a CT image of an injured skull (DICOM format) was fed into MIMICS (Materialise’s Interactive Medical Imaging System) software in which 3D model was constructed from a cross sectional 2D image. The obtained 3D model was then exported into 3-MATIC software in which files required for Finite Element Analysis was prepared. The output image from 3-matic was tested for various biomechanical properties by Finite Element Analysis using ANSYS software. The parameters need to be measured on 3-D image are displacement, von mises stress, von mises strain for the applied load. The Rapid Prototyping model was created.