Tomé Mendes Albuquerque

Abstract
The main purpose of this work is to study the biomechanical behaviour of a peripheral nerve tissue when submitted to mechanical stretching forces. Nerve injury reduces life quality and has a strong impact on the national productivity, so it is essential to study the biomechanical properties of peripheral nerves to improve the repair and regeneration procedure. The study was conducted on a 2D and a 3D model of a sciatic nerve bifurcation in the lower thigh. These models were inspired on a real nerve bifurcation and have been developed using several computational tools. It was used the finite element method (FEM), Radial Point Interpolation Method (RPIM) and Neighbour Radial Point Interpolation Method (NNRPIM) to perform the analyses in FEMAS (R). The results of the analysis with the three different methods are very similar, the main stress is observed always in the same region in both 2D and 3D models and the displacement results for the selected points in the two models are concordant. The results obtained by the three different analysis methods are very similar which not only allow to conclude that these methods are appropriate numerical tools to analyse the biomechanical behaviour of peripheral nerve tissue but also confirms the robustness of the used methods.