Objective: The aim of the simulation was to find the forcing laws, which provide the close-to reality mastication motions of the components of the system and to investigate the contact zones, interaction forces and their action points as they vary in time. The loss of one or few elements of the mastication system can be restored without significant violations of the overall function provided the general correlations among the mastication system elements, which were influenced during the evolutionary development, have been determined in advance.
Materials and methods: We present an approach based on the computer simulation of mastication biomechanics on the basis of finite element (FE) models. They were generated by using the data acquired with both optical and CT scanning systems, which enabled to obtain highly accurate three-dimensional geometrical models of all hard parts of the mastication system of a real dead goat. The surfaces of dental arcs of upper and lower jaws mechanically interacting one against another have been used as the main parts of the model.
Results: Using FE models we discovered that mastication forces are correlated directly between dental arches and TMJ surfaces. Factors influencing geometry of dental arches results a destroy jaw function.
Conclusion: In the course of this analysis the mastication system of a goat has been considered as a representative of the ruminant individual and enabled to demonstrate the mechanics of the mastication process with insights for evaluation of the similarities and differences against the human mastication.