Abstract
Bones tissues are heterogeneous materials that consist of various microstructural features at different length scales. The fracture process in cortical bone is affected significantly by the microstructural constituents and their heterogeneous distribution. Understanding mechanics of bone fracture is necessary for reduction and prevention of risks related to bone fracture. The aim of this study is to develop a finite-element approach to evaluate the fracture process in cortical bone at micro-scale. In this study, three microstructural models with various random distributions based on statistical realizations were constructed using the global model’s framework together with a submodelling technique to investigate the effect of microstructural features on macroscopic fracture toughness and microscopic crack-propagation behaviour. Analysis of processes of crack initiation and propagation utilized the extended finite-element method using energy-based cohesive-segment scheme. The obtained results were compared with our experimental data and observations and demonstrated good agreement. Additionally, the microstructured cortical bone models adequately captured various damage and toughening mechanisms observed in experiments. The studies of crack length and fracture propagation elucidated the effect of microstructural constituents and their mechanical properties on the microscopic fracture propagation process.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abdel-Wahab AA, Alam K, Silberschmidt VV (2010a) Analysis of anisotropic viscoelastoplastic properties of cortical bone tissues. J Mech Behav Biomed Mater 4:807–820
Abdel-Wahab AA, Maligno AR, Silberschmidt VV (2010b) Micro-scale numerical model of bovine cortical bone: analysis of plasticity localization. In: Proceedings of the ASME 10th biennial conference on engineering systems design and analysis, vol 1. Istanbul, Turkey, pp 821–829
Ascenzi A, Benvenuti A (1986) Orientation of collagen fibers at the boundary between two successive osteonic lamellae and its mechanical interpretation. J Biomech 19:455–463
Behiri JC, Bonfield W (1989) Orientation dependence of the fracture mechanics of cortical bone. J Biomech 22:863–867, 869–872
Bonney H, Colston BJ, Goodman AM (2011) Regional variation in the mechanical properties of cortical bone from the porcine femur. Med Eng Phys 33:513–520
Boyce TM, Fyhrie DP, Glotkowski MC, Radin EL, Schaffler MB (2005) Damage type and strain mode associations in human compact bone bending fatigue. J Orthop Res 16:322–329
Budyn E, Hoc T (2007) Multiple scale modeling of cortical bone fracture in tension using X-FEM. REMN 16:213–236
Chan KS, Nicolella DP (2012) Micromechanical modeling of R-curve behaviors in human cortical bone. J Mech Behav Biomed Mater. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmbbm.2012.09.009
Currey JD (2011) The structure and mechanics of bone. J Mater Sci 47:41–54
Currey JD (1999) The design of mineralised hard tissues for their mechanical functions. J Exp Biol 202:3285–3294
Dassault Systemes. (2012) Abaqus v6.12 Documentation—ABAQUS analysis user’s manual. ABAQUS Inc; 6.12
Ebacher V, Wang R (2008) A unique microcracking process associated with the inelastic deformation of haversian bone. Adv Funct Mater 19:57–66
Ethier CR, Simmons CA (2007) Introductory biomechanics: from cells to organisms. Cambridge University Press, New York
Fratzl P, Gupta HS, Paschalis EP, Roschger P (2004) Structure and mechanical quality of the collagen-mineral nano-composite in bone. J Mater Chem 14:2115–2123
Katz JL, Yoon HS, Lipson S, Maharidge R, Meunier A, Christel P (1984) The effects of remodeling on the elastic properties of bone. Calcif Tissue Int 36:31–36
Li S, Abdel-Wahab A, Silberschmidt VV (2012) Analysis of fracture processes in cortical bone tissue. Eng Fract Mech doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2012.11.020
Liu D, Weiner S, Daniel Wagner H (1999) Anisotropic mechanical properties of lamellar bone using miniature cantilever bending specimens. J Biomech 32:647–654
Liu XC, Qin X, Du Z (2010) Bone fracture analysis using the extended finite element method (XFEM) with abaqus. The 34th annual meeting of the American Society of Biomechanics. Brown University
Martin RB, Boardman DL (1993) The effects of collagen fiber orientation, porosity, density, and mineralization on bovine cortical bone bending properties. J Biomech 26:1047–1054
Montalbano T, Feng G (2011) Nanoindentation characterization of the cement lines in ovine and bovine femurs. J Mater Res 26:1036–1041
Nalla RK, Kruzic JJ, Ritchie RO (2004) On the origin of the toughness of mineralized tissue: microcracking or crack bridging? Bone 34:790–798
Nalla RK, Kinney JH, Ritchie RO (2003) Mechanistic fracture criteria for the failure of human cortical bone. Nat Mater 2:164–168
Nalla RK, Kruzic JJ, Kinney JH, Ritchie RO (2005) Mechanistic aspects of fracture and R-curve behavior in human cortical bone. Biomater 26:217–231
Nyman JS, Leng H, Dong XN, Wang X (2009) Differences in the mechanical behavior of cortical bone between compression and tension when subjected to progressive loading. J Mech Behav Biomed Mater 2:613–619
Peterlik H, Roschger P, Klaushofer K, Fratzl P (2006) Orientation dependent fracture toughness of lamellar bone. Int J Fract 139:395–405
Piccolroaz A, Mishuris G, Movchan A, Movchan N (2012) Perturbation analysis of mode III interfacial cracks advancing in a dilute heterogeneous material. Int J Solids Struct 49:244–255
Ritchie RO, Kinney JH, Kruzic JJ, Nalla RK (2005) A fracture mechanics and mechanistic approach to the failure of cortical bone. Fatigue Fract Eng Mater Struct 28:345–371
Robertson DM, Robertson D, Barrett CR (1978) Fracture toughness, critical crack length and plastic zone size in bone. J Biomech 11:359–364
Ural A, Vashishth D (2006) Cohesive finite element modeling of age-related toughness loss in human cortical bone. J Biomech 39:2974–2982
Ural A, Zioupos P, Buchanan D, Vashishth D (2011) The effect of strain rate on fracture toughness of human cortical bone: a finite element study. J Mech Behav Biomed Mater 4:1021–1032
Vashishth D, Tanner KE, Bonfield W (2003) Experimental validation of a microcracking-based toughening mechanism for cortical bone. J Biomech 36:121–124
Yang QD, Cox BN, Nalla RK, Ritchie RO (2006) Fracture length scales in human cortical bone: the necessity of nonlinear fracture models. Biomaterials 27:2095–2113
Zimmermann EA, Schaible E, Bale H, Barth HD, Tang SY, Reichert P et al (2011) Age-related changes in the plasticity and toughness of human cortical bone at multiple length scales. Proc Natl Acad Sci 108:14416–14421
Zioupos P, Currey JD (1994) The extent of microcracking and the morphology of microcracks in damaged bone. J Mater Sci 29:978–986
Zioupos P, Wang X, Currey JD (1996) The accumulation of fatigue microdamage in human cortical bone of two different ages in vitro. Clin Biomech 11:365–375
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support from EPSRC UK (grant no. EP/G048886/1).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Li, S., Abdel-Wahab, A., Demirci, E., Silberschmidt, V.V. (2014). Fracture process in cortical bone: X-FEM analysis of microstructured models. In: Bigoni, D., Carini, A., Gei, M., Salvadori, A. (eds) Fracture Phenomena in Nature and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04397-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04397-5_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-04396-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-04397-5
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)