Recent Progress in Studying the Human Foot - Technologies for Medical Sciences - page 215

Fig. 12 Mesh of the assembly: springs simulating tendons on the plantar fascia, mesh model and
set up model in Ansys ®

Fig. 13 3D foot model for three gait stages

When setting-up the simulation, the objective pursued determines the movement
restrictions. For instance, when studying effects of ground reaction force in order to
evaluate plantar foot damage related to body weight, a vertical restrain is imposed
to the ground body which is considered rigid with no longitudinal expansion,
tibia and fibula are fixated and force is applied vertically on the ground surface,
perpendicularly to the foot (Fig. 12 ).
For different movements, assemblies, mesh and set up for simulations are
different. Figure 13 shows an example of a FEM static simulation for different gait
stance phase stages.