A method for fracture toughness measurement in trabecular bone using computed tomography, image correlation and finite element methods.

The fracture resistance of load-bearing trabecular bone is adversely affected by diseases such as osteoporosis. However, there are few published measurements of trabecular bone fracture toughness due to the difficulty of conducting reliable tests in small specimens of this highly porous material. A new approach is demonstrated that uses digital volume correlation of X-ray computed tomographs to measure 3D displacement fields in which the crack shape and size can be objectively identified using a phase congruency analysis. The criteria for crack propagation, i.e. fracture toughness, can then be derived by finite element simulation, with knowledge of the elastic properties.

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The submitted paper has been reviewed by all the listed authors, who contributed to the design of the study, the acquisition and analysis of the data and critical review of the intellectual content. The material within the paper has not been and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere. The authors confirm that there are no financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence or bias this work. We have acknowledged the sources of funding for this work.