With more young adults requiring total hip arthroplasties the need for bone saving implants becomes more important. The Zimmer Fitmore is a new bone saving implant that utilizes an implantation technique that reduces the damage to the muscle tissue allowing for patients to have a short recovery time as well as a new design that allows it to rest on the medial cortex. There has been anecdotal evidence that this device leads to early revision within six months of implantation due to failures occurring in the medial cortex. The main goal of this study was to computationally model the Zimmer Fitmore and compare it to the ML Taper to see if the failures are due to the design of the implant. The models were created using CT scans of the implants and the same implantation process was simulated for each. Two sizes for the cortical bone thickness, 4mm and 10mm, were used and contrasted with each other. The 10mm cortical thickness model showed that v the strains experienced by the Zimmer Fitmore femur were higher than that of the ML Taper. The 4mm model did not fully complete the simulation, but the results that were obtained showed an increased strain in Gruen zone 7. These results show that the design, not implantation method, could be to blame for the need for early revision when using the Zimmer Fitmore.

A study was undertaken to create a finite element model of a cooled throat converging/diverging rocket nozzle to be used as a tool in designing a cooled aerospike nozzle. Using ABAQUS, a simplified 2D axisymmetric model was created featuring only the copper throat and stainless steel support ring, which were brazed together for the experimental test firings. This analysis was a sequentially coupled thermal/mechanical model. The steady state thermal data matched closely to experimental data. The subsequent mechanical model predicted a life of over 300 cycles using the Manson-Halford fatigue life criteria. A mesh convergence study was performed to establish solution mesh independence. This model was expanded by adding the remainder of the parts of the nozzle aft of the rocket motor so as to attempt to match the transient nature of the experimental data. This model included variable hot gas side coefficients in the nozzle calculated using the Bartz coefficients and mapped onto the surface of the model using a FORTRAN subroutine. Additionally, contact resistances were accounted for between the additional parts. The results from the preliminary run suggested the need for a parameter re-evaluation for cold side gas conditions. Parametric studies were performed on contact resistance and cold side film coefficient. This data led to the final thermal contact conductance of k=0.005 BTU/s•in.•°R for contact between metals, k=0.001 BTU/s•in.•°R for contact between graphite and metal, and h=0.03235 BTU/s2•in.•°R for the cold side film coefficient. The transient curves matched closely and the results were judged acceptable. Finally, a 3D sector model was created using identical parameters as the 2D model except that a variable cold side film condition was added. Instead of modeling a symmetric one or two inlet/one or two outlet cooling channel, this modeled a one inlet/one outlet nozzle in which the coolant traveled almost the full 360° around the cooling annulus. To simplify the initial simulation, the model was cut at the barrier between inlet and outlet to form one large sector, rather than account for thermal gradients across this barrier. This simplified nozzle produced expected data, and a 3D full nozzle model was created. The cold side film coefficients were calculated from previous experimental data using a simplified 2D finite difference approach. The full nozzle model was created in the same manner as the 2D full nozzle model. A mesh convergence study was performed to establish solution mesh independence. The 3D model results matched well to experimental data, and the model was considered a useful tool for the design of an oxidizer cooled aerospike nozzle.

The purpose of this thesis is to effectively model the time history of the temperature distribution during the selective laser sintering process and use this information to investigate the resulting relative density. The temperature is a critical parameter of the process because it directly effects the overall quality of the part. First, an efficient, affordable, and reliable simulation was developed within the finite element software, Abaqus. Next, the results from the simulations were compared to the experimental results performed by Wang et al. (2016). The FEA model consisted of a 3 layer simulation. Multiple simulations at various laser recipes were conducted using W-Ni-Fe as the powder material. The P/v (laser power/scanning speed) was plotted against the resulting total time above the melting temperature for various simulation. It was concluded that a linear relationship exists between the P/v parameters used in the laser recipe and the resulting time above the melting temperature. The average R2 values for the W-Ni-Fe simulations for layer 1, 2, 3 were 0.962, 0.950, and 0.939, respectively. Additionally, the experimental results from the Wang et al. (2016) study confirmed that a linear relationship is present. Thus, it can be concluded that the P/v parameters used within the laser recipe has a direct relation to the resulting relative density of the SLS part.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of tibial stem geometry on stress shielding of the tibia for patients with a total knee replacement. Finite element analysis was used to study different tibial stem geometry types, as well as a vast array of different geometric sizes. Both a peg and stem type geometry were analyzed and compared in order to determine what type geometry causes the least amount of stress shielding. A static loading condition with a dynamic loading factor of three was used for the system and the stress responses were analyzed at regions of interest at various depths. Regions of interest include the posterior and medial regions, at depths ranging from the resurfaced tibial surface to 100 mm below the surface. It was found that the smallest stem/peg sizes produced the least amount of stress shielding, indicating that the less amount of foreign material within the tibia, the more natural the bending and stress response of the tibia. It was also concluded that for the loading conditions used in this study, peg type geometry yields a decreased amount of stress shielding when compared to stem type geometry. This is due to the fact that the peg type geometry allowed for more natural bending and a distributed loading transfer between two pegs rather than one long central stem. Further studies should be completed on other geometry types in order to understand how to best replicate the natural bending of the tibia.

Although highly underutilized by the medical device industry, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in the development of new technologies is gaining popularity as regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) begin to require additional proof of safety through scientific methods. Non-linear FEA allows engineers to realistically simulate the mechanical behavior of implants as seen in the in-vitro, or in some cases, the in-vivo configurations. The work presented in this report investigates how computational methods can be used to simulate the interaction of a St. Jude Medical silicone soft-tip as it passes through a Peel-Away Sheath (i.e. introducer). In this analysis the soft-tips were modeled as axisymmetric with hyperelastic material properties assigned to the soft-tips. An Ogden, second order hyperelastic material model was used to describe the non-linear stress-strain behavior of silicone soft-tips. The finite element program, ABAQUS/Standard was used to simulate the soft-tip/introducer interactions. The reaction forces obtained through these simulations represent the force required to push a lead through an introducer, and were then compared to experimental data.

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The aim of this work is to model, manufacture, and test an optimized Messerschmitt-BölkowBlohm beam using additive manufacturing. The implemented method is the Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization of a minimum compliance design. The Taubin smoothing technique was used to attenuate geometric noise and minimize the formation of overhanging angles and residual stresses due to the thermal activity of the selective laser melting process. The optimized model required examination and repair of local errors such as surface gaps, non-manifold vertices, and intersecting facets. A comparison between experimental and numerical results of the linear elastic regimes showed that the additively manufactured structure was less stiff than predicted. Potential contributors are discussed, including the formation of an anisotropic microstructure throughout the layer-by-layer melting process. In addition, the effect of selective laser melting process on the mechanical properties of stainless steel 316l-0407 and its influence on structural performance was described.

Additive manufacturing has shown the ability to produce highly complex geometries that are not easily manufactured through traditional means. However, the implications of building these complex geometries regarding thermal history requires more attention. AM process simulations have proven to be computationally expensive and require large amounts of pre-processing to execute. This thesis will start with a review of additive manufacturing along with current modeling efforts. Then, the development of a pre-processing tool for finite element simulations of these processes is presented. It is shown that the pre-processing tool significantly decreases the total time-to-simulation by removing manual steps. Finally, a study using this tool is conducted to analyze the thermal histories of a cube and a cylinder with two different scan strategies and explore differences in resulting thermal history. It is shown that less temperature fluctuations and a lower final temperature result from an offset scan strategy and a cylindrical geometry.

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