Author(s)

M. Martinez & M.H. Aliabadi

Abstract

A boundary element method is presented for the evaluation of frac- ture toughness and crack growth analysis in bones. The analysis uti- lizes an anisotropic J-integral for the evaluation of stress intensity fac- tors. The application of the method is presented for prediction of crack path in fracture of human tibia cortical bone at different orientations to the bone axis. It is demonstrated that orthotropic material proper- ties of bones have a significant influence on the fracture toughness and crack growth paths. 1 Introduction Bone is a complex structure and its composition depends on a large number of factors such as: species, bone type, location from which the sample is taken, age, sex, and type of the

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