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Dynamics of muscle paths in biomechanical simulations
Author(s) -
Maas Ramona,
Leyendecker Sigrid
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
pamm
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1617-7061
DOI - 10.1002/pamm.201310021
Subject(s) - multibody system , work (physics) , path (computing) , scalar (mathematics) , concentric , dynamics (music) , nonlinear system , motion (physics) , control theory (sociology) , mathematics , physics , computer science , classical mechanics , geometry , mechanics , mathematical analysis , acoustics , artificial intelligence , control (management) , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics , programming language
Within dynamical simulations of biomechanical motion, the actuation of a multibody system (representing bones and joints) can be implemented via Hill‐type muscle models. The main task of these models is to describe the typical force‐length and force‐velocity relation of real muscles. Thus, it is crucial that the muscle path itself, which is dynamically changing during a motion, is represented correctly in the model, because its length and the change of its length in time, i.e. its concentric or eccentric velocity, are related to the scalar value of the muscle force amount and to the direction of the force acting on the multibody system. In our work, we assume that a muscle tone is always present, even at rest, which leads to the conclusion that tendons and muscles are supposed to follow the path of minimal distance between two insertion points not intersecting the bones. This problem can for example be formulated as a constrained nonlinear optimisation problem, or it can be solved with a more efficient algorithm that determines this path as a G1 (geometrical) continuous combination of given curves. Within this work, both procedures are compared concerning the resulting path length and force directions and their computational costs. (© 2013 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)