A New Model for Biologic Constructs: Biotensegrity

Present biologic models envision organisms behave like the character ‘Topsy’ in Gone with the Wind; they “just grew.” Modeled of Lego© -like components, the individual structures are linked together as if they are automobile parts that are manufactured at different plants and assembled at some central factory. For the most part, hexahedral finite element meshes are used to model structures. When tetrahedral modeling is used, no account is made of the different mechanical properties that are inherent in triangulated structures, (trusses), that make the structures behave very differently than hexahedral-based models.Copyright © 2003 by ASME