A ligament model based on fibre mapping for multibody simulations

A ligament model is proposed to define the wrench of a ligament on the bones during multibody simulations. The model is based on the thin-plate spline mapping to adapt reference data on the anatomy of a specific subject and to define a correspondence between the points on the two insertions of the ligament on the bones, thus simulating the ligament fibrous structure. Tests performed on a ligament show that the model is faster, more accurate and easier to be implemented than a standard multi-bundle model. The accuracy can be also easily adjusted to the application in order to further reduce computational time.