[SOLVED] Muscle contraction simulation

[SergioPM23]

Hi everyone!
I am currently developing my end-of-degree project as industrial engineer, which is about muscle contraction simulations. I would like to know if Sofa is appropriate to develop this simulation.
In first place, I have to create different muscular fiber meshes (fast fibers and slow fibers) in a CAD software (such as Autodesk Inventor) and then simulate its contraction in Sofa. I have tried to simulate the muscular fiber contraction using ConstantForceField and fixing some points of the mesh with FixedConstraint, but the simulation did not look as a contraction at all. I have read in some topics of the forum about the Flexible plugin, and I have seen that some users say that it can be used in muscular simulations. I would like to know if I could use this plugin for the muscular fibers contraction and where I could find tutorials about this plugin. If another different plugin/s is/are required for this, please let me know. In addition, I would like to know how to set the muscular fibers properties in Sofa in order to simulate them as fast fibers or slow fibers.
In second place, I have to create all the connective tissues meshes (endomysium, perimysium and epimysium) and the tendons and integrate them with the fast and slow fibers in a scene in order to simulate the whole muscle contraction. In order to make the simulation look real, I have to follow the Henneman’s Principle: activate the slow fibers first and activate the fast fibers as simulation time goes by. I am not sure if I can do this in Sofa, because I do not know how to make scenes which actions depend on time.
Last thing I would like to know is if exist the possibility of subjecting connective tissues and ligaments to tension while subjecting muscle fibers to compression as Hill’s model indicates.
I am sorry asking so many questions.
I look forward to any response and I would appreciate any help.
Thanks in advance

Sergio.

[Olumide]

Hello @SergioPM23,

Unfortunately I cannot be of much help to you as I am a still learning the sofa framework myself but I can’t help but note that you are more likely to get help if you post a small example of what you have tried and did not work and go from there.

Regards,

– Olumide

[Author]

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