Abstract
Approximately 30,000 persons with non-work-related finger amputations are treated in US hospitals annually. Despite the significant number of finger amputation cases seen, there are few studies on analysis and prevention of finger amputations. We developed a precise three-dimensional Finite Element model of the fingertip to investigate finger amputations. Material properties of bone and nail were utilized from the published data of linear elasticity and plasticity, and material properties of both skin and subcutaneous tissues were hypothesized to be nearly incompressible hyperelastic. We employed von Mises equivalent stress as failure criterion and a user material subroutine of the hyperelastic model with the failure criterion of the effective equivalent stress was formulated. We simulated accidents of finger amputation using the Finite Element analysis and it was possible to examine injury conditions of finger amputations.
