Ricerc@Sapienza

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has gained an extensive application in the medical field, such as soft tissues simulations. In particular, colorectal simulations can be used to understand the interaction with the surrounding tissues, or with instruments used in surgical procedures. Although several works have been introduced considering small displacements, as a result of the forces exerted on adjacent tissues, FEA applied to colorectal surgical scenarios is still a challenge.

The research reported in this paper applies an explicit non-linear FEA solver to
simulate the interaction between a clamp and a hyper-elastic material that aims to
mimic the biological tissue of the colon. More in detail, the paper provides new results
as a continuation of a previous works aimed at the evaluation of this solver to manage
contact and dynamic loading on complex, multiple shapes. Results concern with the
evaluation of the contact force during clamping, thus to the assessment of the forcefeedback.

The use of continuum mechanics, especially Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has gained an extensive application in the medical field, in order to simulate soft tissues. In particular, colorectal simulations can be used to understand the interaction between colon and the surrounding tissues, and also, between colon and surgical instruments. Although several works have been introduced considering small displacements, FEA applied to colorectal surgical scenarios with large displacements is still a challenge.