Current Research

Fragment reattachment for crown root fractures has become a routinely employed treatment modality with the advancements in adhesive dentistry. 3D models of the permanent maxillary central incisor tooth were developed using cone beam computed tomography image of a patient. This model was systematically modified to represent a prominent crown root fracture and subsequently re-attached computationally using three different adhesives. A biting force and a traumatic load were applied, and the induced stresses were studied across the healthy and treated tooth models and compared for three different adhesives used for re-attachment of fractured fragments. 

A cerebral aneurysm is a medical condition where a cerebral artery can burst under adverse pressure conditions. To simulate various aneurysm growth stages, five aneurysm sizes and two wall thicknesses were taken into consideration. In order to simulate realistic pressure loading conditions for the anterior cerebral arteries, inlet velocity and outlet pressure were used. The pressure, wall shear stress, and flow velocity distributions were then evaluated in order to predict the risk of rupture. A low-wall shear stress-based rupture scenario was created using a smaller aneurysm and thinner walls, which enhanced pressure, shear stress, and flow velocity. Additionally, aneurysms with a 4 mm diameter and a thin wall had increased rupture risks, particularly at specific boundary conditions. 

Injuries arising from car crashes are ubiquitous across the globe and account for over 1.3 million fatalities annually. 93% of mortalities are observed in middle- and low-income countries owing to the lack of infrastructure in the safety assessment of car designs. It is therefore imperative to predict the extent of injuries to the occupants during car crashes, which would lead to safer vehicle design. To date, conventional computational testing methods use Hybrid III dummies, which fail to reproduce fracture and tear injuries. In this work, a full-frontal collision of a vehicle against a rigid wall with a highly biofidelic human body model of an occupant was simulated for the first time to investigate fractures and tears using a novel fracture modeling technique.

Daily activities such as walking and running possess abundant amount of energy, which is usually wasted and have the potential to be harvested. Especially, the energy generated from footsteps, if tapped appropriately, may be useful for charging electronic devices such as cell phones, wearables, and medical devices. In this study, the kinetic energy from footsteps was captured using a novel six-layered compartmental insole design with embedded piezoelectric transducers. This system was fabricated using additive manufacturing techniques and evaluated for its capabilities to charge a battery while walking and running. The charging performance was estimated initially for 6000 walking steps and extended to approximately 67,000 simulated running steps to fully charge the battery. A range of transducer arrangements were tested, indicating better power generation from the parallel combinations compared to series.