Jaw Stress During Peak Bite Force.

Amanda Modesto, Sean Beverung

University of Central Florida

4/13/2018

Abstract

The human jaw is a significant part of the body used for mastication and helping facilitate

speech. Which is why it undergoes stress, during biting, chewing, swallowing, facial expression,

and talking. There are only a few studies that have investigated a three-dimensional analysis on

the human jaw that undergoes these stresses or ones similar. A comparison to different methods

used in creating and testing the analysis with different conditions considered. Dependent on what

forces were considered, and what boundary conditions were chosen. A finite element analysis

was performed to map different stresses present in the jaw bone when chewing. This will be a

challenging task since the human mandible has a complex configuration.

Introduction

Looking at rigid structures such as bones is a valuable tool to engineers, doctors, and

dentists to allow them to help design treatments, understand injuries and develop prosthetics. In

dentistry it is an important in implants and restorative work. The amount of stress that can be

applied to the jaw without damage helps in understanding the amount of force that can be applied

to drill and secure implants into the mandible. Implants cannot be done on all patients, it is

dependent on their unique bone structure, the mandible must be thick enough for the implant to

heal successfully. For doctors it is helpful for surgeries that require hardware to heal fractures

and breaks, due to high impact sports such as wrestling and boxing, and other accidental injuries.
Another surgery that is essential to look at is those dealing with diseased jaw bones due to

different pathologies. A three-dimensional model and analysis is helpful for this when part of the

bone has to resected. A model can help to predict how the mandible will change with its stresses

and functions before the surgery occurs. This process can help the doctors determine how much

can be removed without the patient losing total function of their jaw. We will be looking at how

the scanned human mandible reacts to the maximum bite force of a human. Using data gathered

from the material properties of bone and a 3-D surface scan of a human mandible bone material

data provided from standard material testing methods.

Review

The human mandible is also known as the jaw bone. It seats the teeth and moves to

facilitate mastication, because of this the amount of force that the jaw is able to transfer. This

force is enough to cause a dislocation of the jaw or damage to the teeth. It is also something to

consider when for patients that are suffering or recovering from a broken jaw. Fractures are often

treated with pins or braces to secure the jaw while it heals as movement could cause prolonged

or improper healing[1]. Obtaining stress strain characteristics could help in designing better

custom braces for patents to quicken recovery times and assure proper healing. The technique of

FEA can be used to map different stress states in human tissues to determine how best to treat or

prevent injuries as well. Knowing the anatomical position of these stresses is also important in

designing treatment.

The mandible is made from both outer cortical bone with a cancellous bone center. The

structure of the mandible is separated into several parts. The front of the mandible is the Mental.

The Mental includes the front arch of the mandible and the chin. The horseshoe bend of the jaw

tapers off into the body of the jaw, which then extends to the back of the molars. Behind this is
the angle which is characterized by the turn in the bone upwards to connect with the rest of the

skull. After this bend tapers off is the ramus. The ramus is the main strait body of the jaw before

it breaks off into two protrusions. The top space between these protrusion is called the

mandibular notch. The first protrusion is the condyle this protrusion end and includes the head of

the mandible where the jaw meets and is jointed to the rest of the skull. The other protrusion is

the coronoid process which helps with the connection of muscles associated with the cheeks[1].

FEA stands for finite element analysis. FEA is a mathematical method that allows for the

approximation of a large complex problem by splitting it into several smaller easier to solve

finite parts. This method is often used with complex geometries as the small elements can be

assembled to be like the actual object and give accurate results. This is the reason it is chosen to

analyze the mandible as it cannot be easily solved using simple geometry.

Methods

To perform this test an anatomical model is first needed. For the anatomical model a jaw

scanned via the use of an Artec Space Spider 3D scanner [2]. It should be noted that the original

surface mesh is made from a triangular mesh. This scan provides a surface model that can be

used to template the solid model.

 .

Image 1: Initial Domain Mesh.

Because converting the model to a solid model is restricted to two hundred thousand faces the

model’s geometry was simplified to one hundred thousand using quadratic edge collapse

decimation using Meshlab . This method of matrix simplification combines nodes. After this

Solidworks was used to convert the entity into a solid body. From here the solid model was

imported into Abaqus for analysis. The solid body was then used to make a tetrahedral FEM

mesh of 44664 elements. A tetrahedral mesh was chosen as it was the most compatible with the

surface mesh made up of triangular faces.

Forces and boundary conditions are then set on to the mesh. A bite force of 482 N was

then applied to the top surface of all the teeth. This was made assuming that there is no overbite

and that all contact surfaces transferred force evenly. This bite force is to emulate the maximum

bite force of a human during standard mastication. This peak in bite force produces the most

strain and would have the greatest risk of injury on a day to day basis[3]. The boundary
conditions that are used are connection points for the master muscle, medial pterygoid muscle,

and the head of the mandible. These boundary conditions were chosen because the master

muscle is the most powerful muscle used in mastication providing most of the power for the bite

force present on the teeth. The head of the mandible is another bound surface as it would be

forced into place during isometric force application on the jaw. The head of the jaw is also a

boundary because it is the section of the mandible that connects to the skull. While at this point

the jaw is usually capable of rotational and translational motion during maximum force biting,

this section is forced into place. From here the material is defined with a modulus of elasticity

18.3 GPa and a Poisson’s ratio of 0.3 for the cortical bone.

From here the FEA model can be run using the material properties of the force and

boundary conditions formula (1) below.

{𝐹} = [𝐾]{𝛿} (1)

Where {F} is the nodal forces, [K] is the Stiffness matrix and {K} is the displacements.

Providing the force components supplies values that are placed in {F}. Material information and

geometry of the elements provides values that are placed in to the Stiffness matrix, and the

boundary conditions provide values that are placed in {𝛿} where each node has its own values

[4]. The Von Mises Stresses are then calculated using formula (2).

𝜎𝑚 = √1/2((𝜎11 − 𝜎22 )2 + (𝜎22 − 𝜎33 )2 +(𝜎33 − 𝜎11 ) + 6(𝜎12 2 + 𝜎23 2 + 𝜎31 2 ) (2)

Were the component stress are calculated threw formula 3 in the relation between stress and

strains.
𝜎
𝐸=𝛿 (3)

Were E being the modulus of elasticity and 𝜎 is the stress [5]. These stresses help determine

where damage might occur to the jaw bone. At this point then everything needed to solve for
stresses and displacements is provided and the FEA is run on the model to solve for the unknown

values.

Results

For the stress in the jaw the locations with the most stress concentration is above and

below the angle of the jaw. This was followed by a minor concentration of stresses in the

mandibular notch with a corresponding section in the posterior ramus of the mandible. The

maximum sheer stress calculated is at 2.57 MPa. While within the theoretical limits of the strains

that we were looking for this limit does occur at the boundary layer of the master and medial

pterygoid is probably higher than it should be due to the boundary interactions. To try and get a

more accurate measurement of the stresses, vertical sections were taken where the strains were

highest and did not include boundary nodes.

Image 2: Stress Distribution of the Mandible

Looking at the charts gained from a vertical cross section of the jaw, gave a much more

accurate estimation of the stresses which can be seen. Looking at both jaw angles it is seen that

the maximum shear occurs at the bottom of the jaw on the left side at 1.71 MPa. Lower than the
right at 1.20 MPa. We believe this is due to the missing molar on the right side causing more

force to be concentrated on the left side at the location of the mandible angle.

Chart1: Von Mises Stress Pa to Normalized Vertical Distance on left Jaw angle

Chart 2: Von Mises Stress Pa to Normalized Vertical Distance on Right Jaw angle

The other point of notable high strain is the mandibular notch. This location has similar

concentrations of stress for both sides of the jaw for strain at 540 Pascal and 620 Pascal for left

and right respectively.

 Chart 3: Von Mises Stresses to Normalized Vertical Distance on left Mandibular Notch

Chart 3: Von Mises Stresses to Normalized Vertical Distance on left Mandibular Notch

looking at the displacements of the jaw is seen that the majority of the displacement

occurs at the front end of the mandible with a deflection of 5.15 mm. The deflection point is to

be expected to it being the furthest away from the fixed boundary conditions. The back of the

mandible in between the head and angle has almost no deflection this is most likely due to the
aria being between the two boundary conditions. There is some displacement still because the

nodes are pinned and allows for rotation it does seem lower than what it should be.

Image 3: Displacements mm.

Discussion (Validation of results)

There have already been a few studies that have done similar simulations. A study by

Ndukwe E. and Anitha G. in 2016 [6] performed an analysis of 3D models to study the open and

close motion of the human jaw. There model was based on a CT-scan of a young male with no

abnormalities to his jaw. They used a 700N biting force in the both axial and coronal direction on

the coronoid process and the condylar process. Their biting force is higher than the one used on

our model of 482N. Their force was applied on the mental protuberance place under the incisors,

where ours was applied to the teeth directly. The maximum deflection found for their results was

much higher than ours at 693.074 mm. This can be because they used a higher biting force, as

well as a different Young’s Modulus of 10.8 GPa. The Young’s Modulus that we chose to use

was 18.3 GPa, found from a research study of elastic properties and density of the human
mandible and maxilla. Even though their results were greatly different than ours and others

found, they did show how greatly different the stress changes from a healthy normal jaw to an

injured one. Their results showed that the mandibular notch was the most vulnerable part of the

mandible as it had the most strain present.

Another study by Maria S.Commisson, Javier Martı´nez-Reina, Joaquı´n Ojeda,Juana

Mayo in 2014 [7] performed an analysis of stresses during the human mastication cycle. Their

study was not only just of the jaw bone, but also included the muscles attached that worked in

unison with the bone. A finite element model of the mandible and temporomandibular joint was

built using the commercial software Abaqus. A complete unilateral mastication cycle with the

right molars was simulated by applying the forces of the masticatory muscles. These forces were

imposed as external loads, distributed over the insertion area of each muscle. The maximum bite

force obtained at the instant of centric occlusion, 458N, was within the range measured in

experimental studies found previously:430–650 N [8], [9]. When fully closed, the maximum

stresses were observed at the instant of maximum closing and were located at the rami and chin.

Our maximum stress is slightly higher than the results they found of 1 MPa, ours is 1.61 MPa

when not looking directly at the boundary nodes. When the jaw was fully clenched the maximum

shear, stress was taken at 4 MPa. They also found their maximum vertical displacement at just

right under 8 mm. This is larger than our displacement and could be due to the increased distance

to their boundary placed on the mandibles and a sliding degree of freedom on the head of the

mandible allowing for more flexible movement within the jaw.

Additionally AH Choi, B Ben-Nissan, RC Conway performed a study in 2005 of a finite

element analysis of the human mandible during clenching [10]. Their model solved for

displacements and stresses during clenching. In general, the observed displacement and stresses
(tensile and compressive) were highest around the condylar region. But tensile stress was

distributed in a mandible looking very similar to our study with the highest stresses being in the

mandibular arch and behind the third molar. Compressive stress was also observed around the

premolar and molar bite points. Their distortion during clenching was in the range of 0.05-0.3

mm. Their tensile stress ranged from 25-121 MPa, and their compressive stress ranged from 0.3-

167 MPa. It should be noted however that the boundary conditions used for this study set the

molars as the fixed points. Even under this case the maximum displacement is not given for this

model.

One of the biggest issues with the confirmation of mandible models is that there is no

concrete deflection characteristics of known deflection of a jawbone as each one is unique.

Because of this the models used to calculate this deflection. Because of this true stress and strain

values are not available the closest comparison for these models is replicas made out of similar

material. Such a model was not available for the confirmation of this study though one could be

potentially made later.

Conclusion

The use of a scanned mandible model provided reasonable results as far as determining

the stresses and strains present with a jaw model when under a normal biting force with a peak

stress of 1.61 Mpa. In addition. The peak deflection is less than similar studies at 5.15mm. The

even more important part of this study is the inconsistency of strains possibly caused by a

missing and chipped tooth can be seen. The result is an uneven balance of stresses with the left

side having more stress from the presence of an additional molar on the left side increasing the

amount of force and stress on the mandibular arch of that side. A doctor could potentially use

this information to help create specialized individualized treatment. Additions to this simulation
that might be able to make it more accurate include not only having a surface but internal scan of

the jaw bone threw the use of CT so that a more accurate model can be used that take into

account the cancellous bone instead of assuming that the entirety of the material is cortical bone

and motion capture taken in order to better replicate the boundary conditions as stress

amplification at the boundary nodes seems to be the largest source of error within this model.

Appendix

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https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1046489. [Accessed: 10-Apr-2018].

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Biol Med, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 123–136, 2000.

[4] A. Boccaccio, A. Ballini, C. Pappalettere, D. Tullo, S. Cantore, and A. Desiate,

“Finite Element Method (FEM), Mechanobiology and Biomimetic Scaffolds in

Bone Tissue Engineering,” Int. J. Biol. Sci., vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 112–132, 2010.

[5] P. D. Barsanescu and A. M. Comanici, “von Mises hypothesis revised,” Acta

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[6] E. Ndukwe and G. Anitha, “The human jaw movement analysis by finite element

analysis,” in International Conference on Communication and Signal Processing,

ICCSP 2016, 2016, pp. 619–622.

[7] M. S. Commisso, J. Martínez-Reina, J. Ojeda, and J. Mayo, “Finite element

analysis of the human mastication cycle,” J. Mech. Behav. Biomed. Mater., vol.

41, pp. 23–35, Jan. 2015.

[8] A. van der Bilt, A. Tekamp, H. van der Glas, and J. Abbink, “Bite force and

electromyograpy during maximum unilateral and bilateral clenching,” Eur. J. Oral

Sci., vol. 116, no. 3, pp. 217–222, Jun. 2008.

[9] H. P. Sathyanarayana, S. Premkumar, and W. S. Manjula, “Assessment of

maximum voluntary bite force in adults with normal occlusion and different types

of malocclusions.,” J. Contemp. Dent. Pract., vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 534–8, Jul. 2012.

[10] A. H. Choi, B. Ben-Nissan, and R. C. Conway, “Three-dimensional modelling and

finite element analysis of the human mandible during clenching.,” Aust. Dent. J.,

vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 42–8, Mar. 2005.

Amanda Modesto –Researching supporting articles and principals of the study. Comparison and

validation of results.

Sean Beverung – Model conversion definition setup and execution, data analysis. Anatomical

positioning and relevance of study.