Numerical methods to compute stresses and displacements from cellular forces: application to the contraction of tissue

DOI10.1016/J.CAM.2021.113892zbMATH Open1501.65125arXiv2009.08777OpenAlexW3209563657MaRDI QIDQ2059645FDOQ2059645

Fred J. Vermolen, Q. Peng

Publication date: 14 December 2021

Published in: Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We consider a mathematical model for wound contraction, which is based on solving a momentum balance under the assumptions of isotropy, homogeneity, Hooke's Law, infinitesimal strain theory and point forces exerted by cells. However, point forces, described by Dirac Delta distributions lead to a singular solution, which in many cases may cause trouble to finite element methods due to a low degree of regularity. Hence, we consider several alternatives to address point forces, that is, whether to treat the region covered by the cells that exert forces as part of the computational domain or as 'holes' in the computational domain. The formalisms develop into the immersed boundary approach and the 'hole approach', respectively. Consistency between these approaches is verified in a theoretical setting, but also confirmed computationally. However, the 'hole approach' is much more expensive and complicated for its need of mesh adaptation in the case of migrating cells while it increases the numerical accuracy, which makes it hard to adapt to the multi-cell model. Therefore, for multiple cells, we consider the polygon that is used to approximate the boundary of cells that exert contractile forces. It is found that a low degree of polygons, in particular triangular or square shaped cell boundaries, already give acceptable results in engineering precision, so that it is suitable for the situation with a large amount of cells in the computational domain.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.08777

zbMATH Keywords

finite-element methodpoint forcesimmersed boundary approachhole approachpolygonal cell approachskin contraction

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Biomechanical solid mechanics (74L15) Laplace operator, Helmholtz equation (reduced wave equation), Poisson equation (35J05) Finite element, Rayleigh-Ritz and Galerkin methods for boundary value problems involving PDEs (65N30) Biomechanics (92C10)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Finite element convergence for singular data
• A fibrocontractive mechanochemical model of dermal wound closure incorporating realistic growth factor kinetics
• Local error estimates of the finite element method for an elliptic problem with a Dirac source term

Cited In (5)

• Calcul numérique de la déformation mécanique d'un modèle de cellule endothéliale
• Analysis of linearized elasticity models with point sources in weighted Sobolev spaces: applications in tissue contraction
• Quality of approximating a mass-emitting object by a point source in a diffusion model
• Upscaling between an agent-based model (smoothed particle approach) and a continuum-based model for skin contractions
• Title not available (Why is that?)

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