FEM AND BEM STRESS ANALYSIS OF MANDIBULAR BONE SURROUNDING A DENTAL IMPLANT

In this work the structural behavior of a mandible with a dental implant, considering a unilateral occlusion, is numerically analyzed by means of the Finite Element Method (FEM) and the Boundary Element Method (BEM). The mandible, whose CAD model was obtained by computer tomography scans, is considered as completely edentulous and only modeled in the zone surrounding the implant. The material behavior is assumed as elastic and isotropic. A model of a commercial implant was digitized by means of optical 3D scanning process, and fully reconstructed in all geometrical features. Particular attention was posed on the mathematical reconstruction of the CAD model in order to facilitate the meshing process in the BEM environment and reduce the geometrical imperfections generated during the CAD to CAE translation process. The results of FEM and BEM analysis in terms of stress distribution on the mandible are qualitatively compared in order to provide a benchmark between the two methodologies against run times, accuracy and preprocessing efforts.