Automatic Generation of User Material Subroutines for Biomechanical Growth Analysis

Abstract

The analysis of the biomechanics of growth and remodeling in soft tissues requires the formulation of specialized pseudoelastic constitutive relations. The nonlinear finite element analysis package ABAQUS allows the user to implement such specialized material responses through the coding of a user material subroutine called UMAT . However, hand coding UMAT subroutines is a challenge even for simple pseudoelastic materials and requires substantial time to debug and test the code. To resolve this issue, we develop an automatic UMAT code generation procedure for pseudoelastic materials using the symbolic mathematics package MATHEMATICA and extend the UMAT generator to include continuum growth. The performance of the automatically coded UMAT is tested by simulating the stress-stretch response of a material defined by a Fung-orthotropic strain energy function, subject to uniaxial stretching, equibiaxial stretching, and simple shear in ABAQUS . The MATHEMATICA UMAT generator is then extended to include continuum growth by adding a growth subroutine to the automatically generated UMAT . The MATHEMATICA UMAT generator correctly derives the variables required in the UMAT code, quickly providing a ready-to-use UMAT . In turn, the UMAT accurately simulates the pseudoelastic response. In order to test the growth UMAT , we simulate the growth-based bending of a bilayered bar with differing fiber directions in a nongrowing passive layer. The anisotropic passive layer, being topologically tied to the growing isotropic layer, causes the bending bar to twist laterally. The results of simulations demonstrate the validity of the automatically coded UMAT , used in both standardized tests of hyperelastic materials and for a biomechanical growth analysis.