Experimental and Numerical Analysis

Bones are the principal structural components of a skeleton; they provide the body with unique roles, such as its shape maintenance, protection of internal organs and transmission of muscle forces among body segments. Their structural integrity is vital for the quality of life. Unfortunately, bones can only sustain loads until a certain limit, beyond which it fails. Usually, the reasons for bone fracture are traumatic falls, sports injuries, and engagement in transport or industrial accidents. The stresses imposed on a bone in such activities can be far higher than those produced during normal daily activities and lead to fracture. Understanding deformation and fracture behaviors of bone is necessary for prevention and diagnosis of traumas. Even though, in principle, studying bone’s deformation and fracture behavior is of immense benefit, it is not possible to engage volunteers in in-vivo investigations. The main outcome of this work is a comprehensive experimental analysis and numerical simulations of the deformation and fracture of the cortical bone tissue at different length scales in response to quasi-static and dynamic loading.