TY - JOUR
T1 - Crack growth resistance in cortical bone
T2 - Concept of microcrack toughening
AU - Vashishth, D.
AU - Behiri, J. C.
AU - Bonfield, W.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements-This work has been funded by the IRC programme grant received from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The authors are grateful to Dr Z. Luklinska for her help with the scanning electron microscopy and to Dr H. Schechtman and Dr K.E. Tanner for helpful discussions. Thanks are also due to Mr M. Elliot and Mr J. Trifonas for their assistance with the machining and experimentation.
PY - 1997/8
Y1 - 1997/8
N2 - The role of microcracking in cortical bone as a toughening mechanism has been investigated in conjunction with the variation in fracture toughness with crack length. Fracture toughness tests were conducted on miniaturised compact tension specimens made from human and bovine cortical bone and the resultant microstructural damage, present in the form of microcracking on the surface, was analysed around the main propagating crack. It was found that the fracture toughness (K(c)) and the cumulative number of microcracks increased linearly with crack extension in human and bovine cortical bone, although both K(c) and number of microcracks were considerably higher in the latter case. Based on these results, a mechanism, derived from the resistance (R) curve concept developed for microcracking brittle solids, is proposed to explain the fracture of cortical bone, with microcracking distributed between a frontal process zone and a significant process zone wake. Evidence to support this mechanism is given from the existing bone literature, detailed scanning electron microscopical observations and the distribution of microcracks in the process zone wake.
AB - The role of microcracking in cortical bone as a toughening mechanism has been investigated in conjunction with the variation in fracture toughness with crack length. Fracture toughness tests were conducted on miniaturised compact tension specimens made from human and bovine cortical bone and the resultant microstructural damage, present in the form of microcracking on the surface, was analysed around the main propagating crack. It was found that the fracture toughness (K(c)) and the cumulative number of microcracks increased linearly with crack extension in human and bovine cortical bone, although both K(c) and number of microcracks were considerably higher in the latter case. Based on these results, a mechanism, derived from the resistance (R) curve concept developed for microcracking brittle solids, is proposed to explain the fracture of cortical bone, with microcracking distributed between a frontal process zone and a significant process zone wake. Evidence to support this mechanism is given from the existing bone literature, detailed scanning electron microscopical observations and the distribution of microcracks in the process zone wake.
KW - Cortical bone
KW - Fracture toughness
KW - Frontal process zone
KW - Microcrack
KW - R-curve
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/0031214198
U2 - 10.1016/S0021-9290(97)00029-8
DO - 10.1016/S0021-9290(97)00029-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 9239560
AN - SCOPUS:0031214198
SN - 0021-9290
VL - 30
SP - 763
EP - 769
JO - Journal of Biomechanics
JF - Journal of Biomechanics
IS - 8
ER -