Competition Winner Announcement

Simpleware will convert CT scan data of dinosaur fossil into FE mesh

We are pleased to announce the winner of our 2004/2005 Data Conversion Competition, as Dr Emily Rayfield of the Natural History Museum, London.

In conjunction with the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Ohio University, USA and the Royal Veterinary College, London, the Museum's Palaeontology Department is using FEA to test the strength and functionality of dinosaur skulls. One particular group of dinosaurs, the spinosaurs, had skulls remarkably similar to modern day crocodiles, leading to the belief that they fed primarily on fish, despite belonging to a group that included meat eating dinosaurs such as the T. rex. Using FEA, Dr Rayfield and her museum colleague Dr Angela Milner, are studying the structural significance of the skull shape of one such spinosaur, Baryonyx, discovered in a claypit in Surrey in 1983. She states that "CT scanning enables non-invasive visualisation of internal cavities within fossil bones and the creation of 3D digital reconstructions to perform FE structural testing that is simply not possible on the real fossils".

Dr Emily Rayfield A graduate and former Research Fellow of Emmanuel College and the Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge, Dr Rayfield has been rubbing shoulders with dinosaurs since trying to develop the finite element method as a tool for palaeontological specimens whilst also examining the skull biomechanics of Allosaurus. More recently, she has built FE models of other carnivorous dinosaurs including 2D models of Tyrannosaurus rex.

News articles about Dr Rayfield's work:
Nature.com: Taking a bite from the past
BBC News: Dinosaur bites back
Guardian Unlimited: Fangs for the memory

Other publications:
Rayfield, E.J., 2004. Cranial mechanics and feeding in Tyrannosaurus rex. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, Biological Sciences, 271 (1547), 1451 - 1459.
Rayfield, E.J., Norman, D.B., Horner, C.C., Horner, J.R., May Smith, P., Thomason, J.J. & Upchurch, P., 2001. Cranial design and function in a large theropod dinosaur. Nature 409, 1033-1037.

For more information on the Natural History Museum: www.nhm.ac.uk