Finite Element Analysis Predict Breaking Point Of Bones

Finite Element Analysis has brought the study of structural and mechanical design to where we are today. In the formative years when we started our research on the properties and structure of materials, we could not produce accurate results owing to lack of faithful techniques. For example the hardness of any material depends on the structure of material itself. However living in twenty first century even if we know the microscopic structure of bones, we have so far failed to predict the breaking points when a bone is squashed. At least #-Link-Snipped-# claim so.

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FEA is a method which takes elemental particles of a sample for analysis. It basically divides the material into near infinite number of parts. The research was aimed at predicting the exact breaking point when a piece of bone was subjected to failure stresses. There was of course a lot of complex mathematics involved given that bone is stronger than even some of the hardest materials that we know. It is even stronger than concrete when it comes to its ability to sustain compression stresses, 170 MPa- to be exact. The bones can muster so much strength due to its composition and this was what the subject of research was.

We normally take a micro CT scan to determine the microscopic irregularities. The 3D views of which offers us a better picture. But can anyone say how much accurate the results from these methods are? This is where the FEA or the finite element analysis comes into picture. Tsafnat planned to model a rat vertebra as a model. She made an artificial model assuming certain facts which the earlier researchers have always done. One of this was the bone is homogeneous and isotropic material at the microscopic scale. Next she took out the micro CT scan of the model rat bone. This gave her the theoretical points of fracture.  When subjected to the compression stresses, she found out that the results are same when the same method was applied to an actual rat bone.

If the research is taken to be a success then we have yet another application of FEA at hand; predicting the points of failure of material with utmost accuracy. This can have a good utilization even in field of composite material where there are still a lot of research opportunities left owing to the rapid invention of newer materials.