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On the Computational Biomechanics of the Intervertebral Disc

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The Computational Mechanics of Bone Tissue

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computational Vision and Biomechanics ((LNCVB,volume 35))

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Abstract

The intervertebral disc (IVD) is a central piece for spine biomechanics. When the IVD fails, there is a high chance that one is suffering from degenerative disc disease (DDD), which is one of the largest health problems faced worldwide. However, DDD and back pain are also strictly related to the other structures in the spine, such as the vertebral bodies (VBs) or the connecting ligaments. An important amount of experimental and numerical works have studied the spine, focusing on the IVD, the VB or the whole spinal segment, but questions on how degeneration occurs and what causes it are still to be fully answered. This chapter deals with finite element (FE) simulations of the non-degenerated human IVD time-dependent behaviour, using a generic IVD + VB FE model. The outcomes are inside the scope of different sources of experimental and numerical literature data, proving that this model is useful to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy loading levels (shown here as above 600–800 N in activity periods for human spine). In other words, the numerical simulations with this FE model demonstrated potential to mimic the IVD. The biomechanical behaviour of the spine is still dependent on multiple factors, but this increased knowledge on overload levels definitely helps to reduce the risk of DDD and other spine-related diseases to occur.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal

    A. P. G. Castro

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minho, 4800-058, Guimarães, Portugal

    P. Flores, J. C. P. Claro & J. L. Alves

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    António M. G. Completo

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  1. A. P. G. Castro
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  2. P. Flores
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  3. J. C. P. Claro
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  4. António M. G. Completo
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  5. J. L. Alves
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Correspondence to A. P. G. Castro .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto (ISEP), Porto, Portugal

    Jorge Belinha

  2. Departament de Patologia i Terapèutica Experimental, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Maria-Cristina Manzanares-Céspedes

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    António M. G. Completo

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Castro, A.P.G., Flores, P., Claro, J.C.P., Completo, A.M.G., Alves, J.L. (2020). On the Computational Biomechanics of the Intervertebral Disc. In: Belinha, J., Manzanares-Céspedes, MC., Completo, A. (eds) The Computational Mechanics of Bone Tissue. Lecture Notes in Computational Vision and Biomechanics, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37541-6_9

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