Materials Today: Proceedings 3 (2016) 1091 – 1096 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect 2214-7853 © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the Committee Members of 32nd DANUBIA ADRIA SYMPOSIUM on Advanced in Experimental Mechanics (DAS 2015) doi:10.1016/j.matpr.2016.03.054 DAS 2015 Development of a finite element model for lung tumor displacements during breathing Emil Nutu a , Horia Alexandru Petrescu a , Daniel Vlasceanu a , Lucian Gruionu b , Stefan Dan Pastrama a * a University Politehnica, Department of Strength of Materials, Splaiul Independentei nr. 313, Sector 6, 060042, Bucharest, Romania b University of Craiova, Department of Engineering and Management of Technological Systems, Calea Bucuresti nr. 107, 200512, Craiova, Dolj County, Romania Abstract During clinical procedures for investigations of lung tumors, such as bronchoscopy, the breathing process causes movement of tumor nodules, affecting thus the accuracy of the determinations. In order to reduce the excessive irradiation during medical imaging procedures used by clinicians to track the tumor movements, biomechanical models of the respiration process based on the finite element method are currently being developed. This paper describes a methodology for obtaining a finite element model used to assess the magnitude of displacements inside the lungs during the breathing process. A simple to apply method of imposing lung outer surface boundary conditions is developed using an algorithm implemented in MATLAB. The influence of the mesh size on the accuracy of the resulted outer surface displacements was checked by simulating the same conditions for a spherical object. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the Committee Members of 32nd DANUBIA ADRIA SYMPOSIUM on Advanced in Experimental Mechanics (DAS 2015). Keywords: Displacements; lungs; finite element; airways * Corresponding author. Tel.: +40-21-4029206; fax: +40-21-4029477. E-mail address: stefan.pastrama@upb.ro © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the Committee Members of 32nd DANUBIA ADRIA SYMPOSIUM on Advanced in Experimental Mechanics (DAS 2015)