Microtensile measurements of single trabeculae stiffness in human femur

• Published in: Journal of biomechanics 2002-11, Vol.35 (11), p.1515-1519
• Main Authors: Bini, Fabiano, Marinozzi, Andrea, Marinozzi, Franco, Patanè, Federico
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cancellous bone; Compressive Strength; Elasticity; Femur - physiology; Humans; In Vitro Techniques; Microtensile; Reference Values; Stiffness; Stress, Mechanical; Tensile Strength - physiology; Trabecula; Weight-Bearing - physiology
• ISSN: 0021-9290; 1873-2380
• DOI: 10.1016/S0021-9290(02)00182-3

In this paper, the authors perform microtensile tests of single trabeculae excised from a human femur head. One of the main issues of this work is to establish some experimental procedures for preparing and testing the specimens. The use of a well-characterized microtensile apparatus allows for a low intraspecimen dispersion of the measured stiffness. Tensile/compressive tests were chosen because they appear less sensitive to errors in the cross-sectional area measurements with respect to bending tests. By these considerations, some tensile/compressive tests of plate-like trabecular specimens have been carried out. Typical stiffness values are 74.2±0.7 N mm −1 for tensile tests, and 58.9±0.6 N mm −1 for compressive test. Another compressive test performed on a shorter specimen yielded a stiffness value of 148.3±5.3 N mm −1. The maximum applied load was about 0.5 N. Rough measurements of specimens sizes yielded a Young's modulus value ranging from 1.41 to 1.89 GPa.