From CT scan to plantar pressure map distribution of a 3D anatomic human foot

Understanding the stress-strain behavior of human foot tissues and pressure map distributions at the plantar interface is of interest into biomechanical investigations. In particular, monitoring plantar pressure maps is crucial to establishing the perceived human comfort of shoe insoles. A 3D anatomical detailed FE human foot model was created, starting from CT (Computer Tomography) scans of a 29 years old male. Anatomical domains related to bones and soft tissues were generated, using segmentation techniques, and then processed into a CAD environment to model 3D domains by using loft/sweep and boolean operations. Finally, FE model was generated into COMSOL Multiphysics, by assigning contact pairs and defining non-linear material laws. Particular attention was posed on fine tuning the calculation strongly dependent on the convergence parameters influenced by the contacts and hyper-elastic material properties