Acronimo: DIFRACUTT
Titolo: A digital framework for the cutting of soft tissues: A first step towards virtual surgery
Responsabile scientifico: prof Ugo GALVANETTO - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale-Università' degli Studi di PADOVA
Coordinatore: prof. Vito DIANA - Università degli Studi di GENOVA
Partner-Unità di ricerca: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale-Università degli Studi di PADOVA, Università degli Studi di Brescia
Bando: PRIN 2022 - Decreto Direttoriale n. 1385 del 01/09/2023
Durata: 30/11/2023 - 29/11/2025 (24 mesi)
Budget totale progetto: € 224.990,00

Abstract del progetto

In the entire world, and even more in Italy, there is a growing concern about the cost of meeting expectations for health care, particularly if large numbers of people require expensive procedures such as brain surgery. Costs can be reduced and efficiency increased by introducing the use of machinery to help surgeons perform these procedures quickly and accurately. The growing discipline of Computer-integrated surgery (CIS) will provide equipment able to improve clinical results and the efficiency of health-care systems. Many contributions are required to develop CIS of the brain: fast generation of brain models, simulation of the cutting process of soft tissues, provision of visual and haptic feedback to the surgeon through accurate human-machine interface. Modelling of soft tissue cutting remains one of the most challenging problems in computational mechanics. The main difficulties are: modelling of the cutting process, definition of the constitutive behaviour, production of very efficient algorithms. Modelling discontinuities is easy for novel computational methods based on Peridynamics (PD). PD governing equations are valid at points or surfaces of discontinuity and it is therefore especially suited for crack problems. The main objective of the proposal is to develop a multiscale computational tool able to simulate the complete cutting process in three stages: contact deformation before cutting begins, cutting process, and deformation/relaxation of the tissues after cutting. By combining the potentialities of mesh-based and meshfree methods, the proposers aim at coupling the FE brain models they have developed with small portions of PD grids, located where the interaction of surgical instrument and brain tissues takes place.