title: Anisotropic post-yield response of cancellous bone simulated by stress-strain curves of bulk equivalent structures.
abstract: During the last decade, finite element (FE) modelling has become ubiquitous in understanding complex mechanobiological phenomena, e.g. bone-implant interactions. The extensive computational effort required to achieve biorealistic results when modelling the post-yield behaviour of microstructures like cancellous bone is a major limitation of these techniques. This study describes the anisotropic biomechanical response of cancellous bone through stress-strain curves of equivalent bulk geometries. A cancellous bone segment, reverse engineered by micro computed tomography, was subjected to uniaxial compression. The material's constitutive law, obtained by nano-indentations, was considered during the simulation of the experimental process. A homodimensionally bulk geometry was employed to determine equivalent properties, resulting in a similar anisotropic response to the trabecular structure. The experimental verification of our model sustained that the obtained stress-strain curves can adequately reflect the post-yield behaviour of the sample. The introduced approach facilitates the consideration of nonlinearity and anisotropy of the tissue, while reducing the geometrical complexity of the model to a minimum.
authors.affiliation: a Mechanical Engineering Department , School of Polytechnics, Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki , Building D, 54124 Thessaloniki , Greece.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tsouknidas
authors.forename: Georgios
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Maliaris
authors.forename: Savvas
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Savvakis
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Michailidis
mesh_terms: D016880:Anisotropy; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000502:physiology*; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D055114:X-Ray Microtomography
keywords: cancellous bone; computational efficient; equivalent geometry; post-yield deformation; stress–strain properties