FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF THE OPTIC NERVE HEAD (ONH) CONNECTIVE TISSUES - BUILDING A SCIENCE FOR ONH SUSCEPTIBILITY

Finite element (FE) modeling can be used to estimate the stress and strain within complex biological structures. To construct a FE model, a digital geometry of the structure to be modeled is constructed and then divided into small, regularly shaped, finite elements, to which material properties (stiffness) are assigned. Stress and strain (deformation) is calculated for each element and then superposed to determine the structure’s overall behavior. As the complexity of the structure increases, the number of finite elements required to model that structure increases. Incorporating anisotropic (non-homogenous) and visco-elastic (time-dependant) material properties further refines and complicates the modeling.