Open student projects

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Title: 

Fluid-structure interaction simulation of bone cells immersed in water – a model for bone implant loosening  

Description:

Integration of bone implants in the bone tissue in the human body is affected by the type of physiotherapy performed, which stems from the fact that bone formation is sensitive to the mechanical stimuli experienced by bone cells from its environment. Specifically, experiments show that bone formation is directly connected to the fluid dynamics inside the bone [1]. Still there is a lack of knowledge about thresholds when mechanical loading is good or bad for the bone.

In this project we seek to replicate the experiments in [1] for individual bone cells, by using finite element fluid-structure interaction simulations. The project builds on previous work using the open-source software FEniCS to build a model of the immersed cell [2]. In this project we will extend this work to perform single cell simulations corresponding to the experiments [1], where we analyze the mechanical forces acting on the cell and its resulting deformation. 

The project is a collaboration with Linköping University. 

[1] Bratengeier et al. 2020. 
https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1096/fj.201901458R
[2] Jacob Beran, 2017. https://www.kth.se/files/view/jhoffman/5c866b999ce0259be61a9608/report_master_thesis_jberan_fi.pdf

Contact: 

Johan Hoffman
Email: 
URL: https://www.kth.se/profile/jhoffman

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