Method for building finite element model of corneal endothelial cells

A method for building a finite element model of corneal endothelial cells, comprising:

• importing a standard corneal model into finite element pre-processing software, and generating 2D meshes, to obtain a basic mesh model;
• importing a detailed geometric model of corneal endothelial cells;
• determining a complete corneal endothelial cell model according to the basic mesh model and the detailed geometric model;
• and
• performing calculation according to the complete corneal endothelial cell model;
• the determining of the complete corneal endothelial cell model according to the basic mesh model and the detailed geometric model comprises:
• using beam elements to simulate connexin between cells;
• projecting the mesh generated according to the detailed geometric model onto the corneal endothelial surface so that the detailed geometric model is fitted to the corneal endothelial surface;
• connecting the basic mesh model with the detailed mesh model to form a complete corneal endothelial cell model;
• and
• projecting all meshes onto the corneal endothelial surface so that the complete mesh model is fitted to the corneal endothelial cell surface;
• performing calculation according to the complete corneal endothelial cell model comprises:
• assigning material and cross-sectional properties to the corneal endothelial cell model in finite element simulation software, selecting a Neo-Hooke model as a material constitutive model, setting a material parameter C10 to 173 Pa, setting a material parameter D1 to 0.0006 1/Pa, and defining a thickness of 5 μm for the endothelial cells;
• connecting two cells by a beam element, and assigning a circular cross-section to the beam element, the radius of the circular cross-section being 1 μm;
• constraining the outermost nodes of the corneal endothelial cells to the translational degrees of freedom in the X, Y and Z directions to fix the complete corneal endothelial cell model;
• selecting the corneal endothelial cell model, and applying a pressure of 2E-07 MPa, to simulate an intraocular pressure;
• and
• submitting the calculation in the finite element simulation software and obtaining a calculation result.