Prof. Röhrle's research focuses on developing computational models describing the human body – a truly interdisciplinary field of research interfacing with several other research areas like medicine, physiology, mathematics and mechanics. The main focus of his research is on modelling skeletal muscles and parts of the musculoskeletal system. His computational skeletal muscle models allow him, for example, to investigate the mechanical response of a skeletal muscle that was subjected to an external stimulation. Insights gained from this work provide additional information for the rehabilitation treatment of paraplegics or for the aforementioned research proposal on simulating the dynamics of an above-knee amputee. Oliver Röhrle explains that “using three-dimensional computational models to solve for the internal mechanical behaviour of the musculoskeletal system during gait will allow us to gain new insights for significantly improving the stump-shaft interface of prostheses.” Simulations provide additional value to many biomedical applications as they are capable of determining physical quantities, which can be hardly, if at all, measured experimentally. One such example is the contact forces between the stump and the shaft, which can currently only be reliably measured at discrete locations under static conditions. Simulations can provide such information at any location and for many different scenarios.
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