Finite Element Modelling of the Healthy Wrist Joint - Computational Biomechanics of the Wrist Joint - page 36

Fig. 4.3 Steps performed to construct finite element model of the cartilage

Marc.Mentat (MSC.Software, Santa Ana, CA) software was used to convert the
completed model to 3D solid linear first order tetrahedral elements. This resulted
in FE model of the healthy wrist consisting of 828,888 elements and 204,218
nodes. The steps performed were shown in Fig. 4.1 .
The ratio of twice the radius of the inscribed circle to the radius of the ascribed
circle of the triangle was used as the normalised indicator to determine the mesh
quality (Fig. 4.2 a) [ 3 ]. The value was set at 0.4 to produce a high quality of surface
mesh [ 4 ]. An assessment made on the model quality based on surface element
confirming its reliability where the ratio of twice the radius of the inscribed circle
to the radius of the ascribed circle of the triangle for 90 % of elements was greater
than 0.80 (where unity represents an equilateral triangle (Fig. 4.2 b).