Please excuse my biomechanical ramblings:
I will model the following craniofacial sutures in order of priority: Coronal, zygomaticotemporal, nasofrontal, premaxillo-maxillary, palatine. The 3d model of a juvenile female Capuchin monkey will include anywhere from 100,000-250,000 tetrahedral elements. The sutures will be created by isolating the elements located at the suture areas and assigning them material properties that reflect the inherent elasticity, stiffness, and density of cranial sutures. The model will include the deciduous and permanent teeth that have already erupted. Those teeth that are immature will be removed from the bone. The teeth will be assigned physical properties indicative of dentine and enamel. The preiodontal ligaments surrounding the roots of the teeth will be included in the model.
The model will be simplified in several ways. It is known that cranial bone varies in its malerial properties depending on location and function of the bone, however, for the sake of ease of modeling, the cranium will be assigned one set of physical properties taken from an average of values obtained from all parts of the skull of adult monkeys. Only the masticating muscles will be accounted for: the temporalis, Masseters (superficial, and profundus), and the medial pterygoid. The contribution of the lateral pterygoids to total bite force is negligable and was therefore excluded from the model. All other soft tissues, including the eye balls, brain, and facia, were also excluded. The muscle forces will be calculated from their physiological cross sections. The forces will be distributed among and attached to nodes on the model that represtent the origin sites on the cranium. the forces will "pull" in directions dictated by the muscle fiber orientations. One side of the skull will be designated as the working side, and the other will be the balancing side. The working side will be loaded with 100% of the calculated muscle forces, and the balancingside will be loaded with only 50% of the calculated muscle force. The model will be fixed at points on the first molar to simulate biting. Nodes located at the atriculation points (temporomandibular Joint) will be selected and fixed to stabelize the model to keep it from swinging in free space when loaded.
Brius Community Member 
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