• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.315-325
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• 2022

Background: Firefighters are required to carry self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), which increases the risk of musculoskeletal disorders. This study assessed the newly recruited firefighters' internal forces and potential musculoskeletal disorders when carrying SCBA. The effects of SCBA strap lengths were also evaluated. Methods: Kinematic parameters of twelve male subjects running in a control condition with no SCBA equipped and three varying-strapped SCBAs were measured using 3D inertial motion capture. Subsequently, motion data and predicted ground reaction force were inputted for subject-specific musculoskeletal modeling to estimate joint and muscle forces. Results: The knee was exposed to the highest internal force when carrying SCBA, followed by the rectus femoris and hip, while the shoulder had the lowest force compared to the no-SCBA condition. Our model also revealed that adjusting SCBA straps length was an efficient strategy to influence the force that occurred at the lumbar spine, hip, and knee regions. Grey relation analysis indicated that the deviation of the center of mass, step length, and knee flexion-extension angle could be used as the predictor of musculoskeletal disorders. Conclusion: The finding suggested that the training of the newly recruits focuses on the coordinated movement of muscle and joints in the lower limb. The strap lengths around 98-105 cm were also recommended. The findings are expected to provide injury interventions to enhance the occupational health and safety of the newly recruited firefighters.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.56-66
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• 1999

Shoulder joint is the most movable joint in human body with, at least, three degrees of freedom, since there are at least three bones and five joints involved in shoulder movement. Due to the complexity of the shoulder joint and the lack of appropriate anatomical data, modeling of the shoulder joint has been known to be extremely difficult. In many biomechanical models being used, shoulder joint is considered as a fixed point and it is also assumed that the shoulder joint does not noticeably move during the shoulder movement. However, such an assumption is not valid in real applications and causes inaccuracy, especially, in the area of workspace evaluation. The reachable area generated by a human becomes somewhat different from that of current models for those models fail to appropriately reflect the movement of shoulder joint's center of rotation. In this study, the location of the shoulder joint's center of rotation was obtained in relation to the location of humerus, on which a new model for reach envelope generation was developed for workspace evaluation. From the experiments conducted for three subjects, the initial location of the center of rotation was determined for each subject and subsequent changes in the instantaneous center of rotation were drawn as a function of flexion and abduction of the shoulder. Based on the regression analysis, the study suggested a new method for the generation of reach envelope. Comparisons were also made among real reach envelopes obtained from the experiment, the ones from the model, and the ones from the new method suggested in the study. As a result, the prediction errors incurred from the new method were significantly reduced when compared to the ones from the current approach.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.372-377
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• 2007

For more than 2,500 years, surgical teaching has been based on the so called "see one, do one, teach one" paradigm, in which the surgical trainee learns by operating on patients under close supervision of peers and superiors. However, higher demands on the quality of patient care and rising malpractice costs have made it increasingly risky to train on patients. Minimally invasive surgery, in particular, has made it more difficult for an instructor to demonstrate the required manual skills. It has been recognized that, similar to flight simulators for pilots, virtual reality (VR) based surgical simulators promise a safer and more comprehensive way to train manual skills of medical personnel in general and surgeons in particular. One of the major challenges in the development of VR-based surgical trainers is the real-time and realistic simulation of interactions between surgical instruments and biological tissues. It involves multi-disciplinary research areas including soft tissue mechanical behavior, tool-tissue contact mechanics, computer haptics, computer graphics and robotics integrated into VR-based training systems. The research described in this paper addresses the problem of characterizing soft tissue properties for medical virtual environments. A system to measure in vivo mechanical properties of soft tissues was designed, and eleven sets of animal experiments were performed to measure in vivo and in vitro biomechanical properties of porcine intra-abdominal organs. Viscoelastic tissue parameters were then extracted by matching finite element model predictions with the empirical data. Finally, the tissue parameters were combined with geometric organ models segmented from the Visible Human Dataset and integrated into a minimally invasive surgical simulation system consisting of haptic interface devices and a graphic display.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.178-184
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• 1997

Many mathematical techniques have been developed to determine the muscle forces and force distribution in biomechanical human model, because it is so important to understand internal forces resisting external loading. However, a three-dimensional mathematical model of wrist joint, which is essential to develop solid modeling and artificial wrist joint, has not been well developed. This study proposed to define three-dimensional mathematical model of distal radius and ulna of the human wrist and to develop a detailed two-dimensional finite element through comparisons to existing analytical models and experimental tests. This mathematical model were accurately recreated, allowing the internal tendon force as well as force transmission and distribution through the distal radios and ulna during dynamic loadings. The results found in this study indicate and support the findings of other investigator that cyclic loading condition results in higher compression force on distal radius and ulna and may be source of wrist disorder.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.111-116
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• 2013

Finite element analysis(FEA) has been extensively applied in the analyses of biomechanical properties of stents. Geometrically, a closed-cell stent is an assembly of a number of repeated unit cells and exhibits periodicity in both longitudinal and circumferential directions. This study concentrates on various parameters of the FEA models for the analysis of drug-eluting biodegradable polymeric stents for application to the treatment of coronary artery disease. In order to determine the mechanical characteristics of biodegradable polymeric stents, FEA was used to model two different types of stents: tubular stents(TS) and helicoidal stents(HS). For this modeling, epigallocatechin-3-O-gallate (EGCG)-eluting poly[(L-lactide-co-${\varepsilon}$-caprolactone), PLCL] (E-PLCL) was chosen as drug-eluting stent materials. E-PLCL was prepared by blending PLCL with 5% EGCG as previously described. In addition, the effects of EGCG blending on the mechanical properties of PLCL were investigated for both types of stent models. EGCG did not affect tensile strength at break, but significantly increased elastic modulus of PLCL. It is suggested that FEA is a cost-effective method to improve the design of drug-eluting biodegradable polymeric stents.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1995 no.11
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• pp.34-38
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• 1995

Using a 3-D finite element method (FEM), the biomechanical characteristics of a threaded truncated acetabular component and a porous coated hemispherical acetabular component were studied. The Von-Mises stress/strain patterns in the acetabulum reconstructed with these two different types of cementless acetabular cups were investigated. The geometry and dimensions of human hemi-pelvis used in the present shape modeling for finite element analysis were scanned with a 3-D laser scanner(TDS-9000, Cyberware, USA). The scanned data was numerically handled with a shape modelling software 'Pro-Engineer'. Using 19836, 16853 tetrahedral elements, respectively, the stress and displacement field of the acetabulum reconstructed with the two different types of the acetabular components were computed. While the hemi-sphere component was found to show a relatively similar stress/strain patterns to those in the normal hip, the results with the threaded cup showed a considerably different patterns from those in the normal condition. Several regions in cancellous bone near the threads and the edge of the truncated cup was found to be overstressed, especially in the superior-lateral part of the acetabulum. It was postulated that the excessive reaming-out of subchondral bone layer when the truncated cup was used can cause the presence of these overstressed regions of cancellous bone. This theoretical prediction for the implanted acetabulum appeared to consistent with the pathological observation of proximal/medial migration of the threaded truncated acetabular prostheses in the previous publications.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.15-25
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• 2017

Swirl flow is often found in proximal coronary arteries, because the aortic valves can induce swirl flows in the coronary artery due to vortex formation. In addition, the curvature and tortuosity of arterial configurations can also produce swirl flows. The present study was performed to investigate fractional flow reserve alterations in a post-stenotic distal part due to the presence of pre-stenotic swirl flow by computational fluid dynamics analysis for virtual stenotic models by quantifying fractional flow reserve(FFR). Simplified stenotic coronary models were divided into those with and without pre-stenotic swirl flow. Various degrees of virtual stenosis were grouped into three grades: mild, moderate, and severe, with degree of stenosis of 0 ~ 40%, 50 ~ 60%, and 70 ~ 90%, respectively. In this study, three-dimensional computational hemodynamic simulations were performed under hyperemic conditions in virtual stenotic coronary models by coupling with a zero-dimensional lumped parameter model. The results showed that the influence of pre-stenotic swirl inflow is dominant on FFR alteration in mild stenosis, whereas stenosis is dominant on FFR alteration in moderate/severe stenosis. The decrease in FFR caused by swirl flow is more significant in mild stenosis than moderate/severe stenosis. Biomechanical modeling is useful for clinicians to provide insight for medical intervention strategies. This hemodynamic-based parameter study could play a critical role in the development of a non-invasive imaging-based strategy-support system for percutaneous transluminal angioplasty in cases of mild/moderate stenosis.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.1709-1712
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• 2008

The trunk is inclined to the loaded side when carrying an object as one of activities of daily living. As the reaction to this behavior the human body may be inclined to his/her trunk to unloaded side. The present study investigated the biomechanical effects of weight variation for sided load carriage during walking upon joint moments and muscle torques, through the tracker agent and joint driving dynamic analysis. To perform the experiment one male was selected as subject for the study. Gait analysis was performed by using a 3D motion analysis system. Thirty nine 14mm reflective markers, according to the plug-in marker set, were attached to the subject. We used BRG.LifeMOD(Biomechanics Research Group, Inc., USA), for skeletal modeling and inverse and joint driving dynamic simulation during one gait cycle. In walking with a sided load carriage, the subject modeled held the carriage with the right hand, which weighed 0, 5, 10, 15kg, 20kg respectively. The result of this simulation showed that knee and hip in the coronal plane were inclined to the loaded side and loaded side had larger moments as the sided load carriage was increased. On the other hand thoracic and lumbar in the coronal plane had larger negative values as the sided loaded carriage was increased. The thoracic and lumbar in the transverse plane also had larger values as the sided load was increased. And the several muscles of loaded side were increased as increasing sided load. It could be concluded that human body is adopted to side loaded circumstances by showing more biologic force. These results could be very useful in analysis for delivery motion of daily life.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.8
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• pp.691-701
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• 2017

The barbell squat is a fundamental physical exercise for strengthening the lower body and core muscles. It is an integral part of training and conditioning programs in sports, rehabilitation, and fitness. In this paper, we proposed a virtual test framework for squat exercises using a Smith machine to simulate joint torques and muscle forces, based on an integrated product-human model and motion synthesis algorithms. We built a muscular skeletal human model with boundary conditions modeling the interactions between the human body and a machine or the ground. To validate the model, EMG, external forces, and squat motions were captured through physical experiments by varying the foot position. A regression-based motion synthesis algorithm was developed based on the captured squat motions to generate a new motion for a given foot position. The proposed approach is expected to reduce the need for physical experiments in the development of training programs.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.397-409
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• 2007

Owing to needs of biomechanical comprehension and analysis to obtain various medical treatment designs which are related with the spine in order to cure and diagnose LBP patients, the FE modeling and nonlinear analysis of lumbosacrum including a partial ilium and iliolumbar ligaments, were carried out. First, we investigated whether the geometrical configuration of vertebrae displayed by DICOM slice files is regular and normal condition. After constructing spinal vertebrae including a partial ilium, a sacrum and five lumbars (from L1 to L5)with anatomical shape reconstructed using softwares such as image modeler and CAD modeler, we added iliolumbar ligaments, lumbar ligaments, discs and facet joints, etc.. And also, we assigned material property and discretized the model using proper finite element types, thus it was completely modeled through the above procedure. For the verification of each segment, average sagittal ROM, average coronal ROM and average transversal ROM under various loading conditions(${\pm}10Nm$), average vertical displacement under compression(400N), ALL(Anterior Longitudinal Ligament) and PLL(Posterior Longitudinal Ligament) force at L12 level, strains of seven ligaments on sagittal plane at L45 level and maximal strain of disc fibers according to various loading conditions at L45 level, etc., they were compared with experimental results. For the verification of multilevel-lumbosacrum spine including partial ilium and iliolumbar ligaments, the cases with and without iliolumbar ligaments were compared with ROM of experiment. The results were obtained from analysis of the verified FE model as follows: I) Iliolumbar ligaments played a stabilizing role as mainly posterior iliolumbar ligaments under flexion and as both posterior and anterior iliolumbar ligaments of one side under lateral bending. 2) The iliolumbar ligaments decreased total ROM of 1-8% in total model according to various motion conditions, which changed facet contact forces of L5S level by approximately 0.8-1.4 times and disc forces of L5S level by approximately 0.8-1.5 times more than casewithout ilioligaments, under various loading conditions. 3) The force of lower discs such as L45 and L5S was bigger than upper discs under flexion, left and right bending and left and right twisting, except extension. 4) It was predicted that strains of posterior ligaments among iliolumbar ligaments would produce the maximum 16% under flexion and the maximum 10% under twisting. 5) It's expected that this present model applies to the development and design of artificial disc, since it was comparatively in agreement with the experimental datum.