Simulation of Fracture Healing Using Cellular Automata (Influence of Operation Conditions on Healing Result in External Fixation)

Abstract

In this study, fracture healing was simulated by the CA method, which is one of the discrete computation methods. First, the state of a cell was defined as "bone", "cartilage" or "fibrous connective tissue" and a set of local rules was constructed referring to the fuzzy logic model for sheep metatarsal. The simulation results obtained by the CA method agreed well with the ones in the previous research and the experimental data. As a result, it was concluded that the CA simulation model proposed in this study is a suitable model for describing fracture healing. Next, modifying the parameters of local rules, fracture healing of human bone was simulated. On the basis of the simulation results obtained under various conditions of external fixation, it was concluded that an optimal set of stopper gap and initial gap conditions may exist because they have a close relationship to each other.