Gerard Fortuny

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Analyses of registries and medical imaging suggest that laparoscopic surgery may be penalized with a high incidence of trocar-site hernias (TSH). In addition to trocar diameter, the location of the surgical wound (SW) may affect TSH incidence. The intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) exerted on the abdominal wall (AW) might also influence the appearance...

The effect of the dimensions of the thoracic cage on the resuscitation outcome of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) maneuvers has long been debated. In this study, the effect of changes in the rib cage dimensions on the achieved compression depth was investigated using finite element simulations. A total of 216 different rib cage geometry models...

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure performed on patients during cardiac and respiratory arrest. This procedure externally activates the cardiac and respiratory systems via the delivery of chest compression and artificial ventilation. As the main purpose of CPR is to recirculate the blood flow, prediction of the myocardium...

Background An accurate knowledge of the relocation of prostate neoplasms during biopsy is of great importance to reduce the number of false negative results. Prostate neoplasms are visible in magnetic resonance images (MRI) but it is difficult for the practitioner to locate them at the time of performing a transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) guided biops...

An ostomy is a surgical procedure by which an artificial opening in the abdominal wall, known as a stoma, is created. We assess the effects of stoma location on the abdominal wall mechanics. We perform three-dimensional finite element simulations on an anatomy model which was generated on the basis of medical images. Our simulation methodology is e...

The biomechanical response of a human rib cage to cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers was investigated by means of finite element simulations. We analyzed the effect of the location where the force was applied on the achieved compression depths and stress levels experienced by the breastbone and ribs. For compression locations on the breastbone...

An ostomy is a surgical procedure by which an artificial opening in the abdominal wall, known as a stoma, is created. We assessthe effects of stoma location on the abdominal wall mechanics. We perform three–dimensional finite element simulations on ananatomy model which was generated on the basis of medical images. Our simulation methodology is ent...

Background: An accurate knowledge of prostate lesions relocation during biopsy is of great importance to prevent mispositioning of the needle and thus reduce the chance of faulty biopsy results (false negatives). Prostate lesions are visible in magnetic resonance images (MRI) but it is difficult for the practitioner to locate them at the time of pe...

The alteration of blood flow around an OPTEASE® inferior vena cava filter with one or two blood clots attached was investigated by means of computational fluid dynamics. We used a patient–specific vein wall geometry, and we generated different clot models with shapes adapted to the filter and vein wall geometries. A total of eight geometries, with...

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ZQ~FcV4L381G Background and objective: Abdominal hernia repair is one of the most often performed surgical proce- dures worldwide. Numerical simulations of the abdominal wall mechanics can be a valuable tool to devise actions aimed at preventing hernia formation. A first step towards this goal is the development of...

Computational fluid dynamics was used to simulate the flow of blood within an inferior vena cava (IVC) geometry model that was reconstructed from computed tomography images obtained from a real patient. The main novelty of the present work is that we simulated the implantation of four different filter models in this realistic IVC geometry. We consi...

Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is a common disease. Large thrombi in venous vessels cause bad blood circulation and pain; and when a blood clot detaches from a vein wall, it causes an embolism whose consequences range from mild to fatal. Walking is recommended to DVT patients as a therapeutical complement. In this study the mechanical effects of walk...

In the region of Vall d’Aran we find an ensemble of Romanesque churches with very particular formal and constructive characteristics. These buildings, most of them built during the twelfth century, have suffered various alterations through history. Their capacity to deform in many cases has put the balance of the masonry structure to the limit, for...

A methodology that might help physicians to establish a diagnostic and treatment tailored for each specific patient with a pathological thrombus is presented. A realistic model for the geometry of a popliteal vein with a thrombus just above the knee was reconstructed from in vivo computed tomography images acquired from one specific patient and the...

Gothic construction wouldn’t have been possible without the use of auxiliary resources which could handle the efforts of the structure during the raising process. In the cathedral of Tortosa case, the ‘libros de obra’ refers to a big pillar used during the building of the apse, which is named ‘pilar major’. The logic of the construction, and also...

In April of 2011, one of the masonry domes of the cathedral of Tortosa enclosure (Tarragona), built at late XVIII century, suddenly broke. The paper presents the evolution of the rupture and its causes, analyzing the cracking process initiated with the runout of the lantern. It is analyzed the equilibrium conditions starting from the initial constr...

The Spanish military engineers built several U-shaped strongholds during the eighteenth century, using the geometrical constructions of the ellipsis et ovum. In the project on paper, engineers used the oval because of its ease of layout, but they could use either of the two figures in the staking of the fortifications. In 1704 Vicente Tosca publish...

Val d’Aran is located in the north side of the Spanish Pirineo, between Spain and France. There we can find a group of Romanic churches built on XIIth Century, which presents large geometrical deformations of more than 10% its initial form. The basilical churches were initially covered with timber roofs. Later these were replaced by barrel vaults s...

The classical interpretation of myocardial activation assumes that the myocardium is homogeneous and that the electrical propagation is radial. However, anatomical studies have described a layered anatomical structure resulting from a continuous anatomical helical disposition of the myocardial fibers. To further investigate the sequence of electrom...

The heptagonal shape and its geometric layout have been the subject of a great deal of speculation. Because some apses in Gothic cathedrals are heptagonal, there must be a methodology implicit in the layout of the geometric shape. Two particularly important sources help us arrive at an understanding: the exceptional of the capitular archive of the...

In April of 2011, one of the masonry domes of the cathedral of Tortosa enclosure (Catalunya, near Barcelona) suddenly broke. This paper presents the restoration process of this XVIII century dome, exposing the evolution of the rupture and its causes, the analysis of the cracking process and the numerical approaches developed to determine the restor...

The object of study is a roman aqueduct which construction was ordered by Emperor Augustus the first century b.C. in Tarraco, a city in the north of Spain, today known as Tarragona. The city was declared Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2000, some restoration works were planed since then and those concerned the aqueduct as well. The restoration wo...

A common problem in the elaboration of biomechanical models is determining the properties and characteristics (measures) of the physical behavior of in vivo tissues in the human body. Correct estimates must be made of the tissue's physical properties and its surroundings. We suggest a method to compute the constitutive modeling of venous tissue, fo...

Recently, one of the domes situated in Tortosa’s Cathedral enclosure (Spain) suddenly broke. Cracks were formed quickly, forcing to shore up the structure and subsequently to repair and reinforce it. In this paper we present the limit analysis by FEM of the masonry dome which cracked because of an asymmetric charge. It’s an oval plant dome, built w...

Mechanical factors have a significant influence on the degenerative progression of spine tissues. Numerical models are particularly suitable to assess the specific contribution of these factors, but require the simulation of reliable boundary loads which remains unsolved. Since the spine musculature transfers most of the kinematical forces to the t...

Spinal muscles provide stability of the trunk and transmit loading onto the vertebra and intervertebral discs. Current lumbar spine finite element models overlook such muscle contribution or suggest simplifications far from the reality. This study proposes to address this limitation by developing a novel active lumbar spine muscle model. A modified...

We are interested in studying the genesis of a very common pathology: the human inguinal hernia. How the human inguinal hernia appears is not definitively clear, but it is accepted that it is caused by a combination of mechanical and biochemical alterations, and that muscular simulation plays an important role in this. This study proposes a model t...

This study suggests a method for computing the constitutive model for veins in vivo from clinically registered ultrasound images. The vein is modelled as a hyperelastic, incompressible, thin-walled cylinder and the membrane stresses are computed using strain energy. The material parameters are determined by tuning the membrane stress to the stress...

Here, we make comments to the conclusions of the paper: LIU Shi-Da, SHI Shao-Ying, LIU Shi-Kuo, et al., "Vortex of Fluid Field as Viewed from Curvature" [Commun. Theor. Phys. 43 (2005) 604].

Simulation of the human muscular system has multiple applications in biomechanics, biomedicine and in the study of motion in general. Mechanical alterations of the normal functioning in the inguinal area ("inguinal shutter") seems to be involved in the genesis of hernias in adults, but the role of this anatomical mechanisms is poorly understood. A...

Simulating the muscular system has many applications in biomechanics, biomedicine and the study of movement in general. We are interested in studying the genesis of a very common pathology: human inguinal hernia. We study the effects that some biomechanical parameters have on the dynamic simulation of the region, and their involvement in the genesi...

In 1975 the valencian cardiologist F. Torrent-Guasp described the heart as a Helical Ventricular Myocardial Band (HVMB) in which “The ventricular myocardium is presented when it is unrolled under the form of a single big muscular band that, due to its special disposition, describes two cavities in the intact heart” [1]. It gives a different perspec...

In order to contribute in the study of the HVMB, a computational model to simulate the behaviour of the myocardial tissue, mainly based in the fibre, is presented in a computational simplified model of the HVMB. The results obtained are compared with others works in the literature to conclude that if the electro-mechanical activation sequence in th...