Evaluation on mechanical properties of a single trabecular in bovine femur

The increase of patients with osteoporosis is a social problem. Osteoporosis decreases bone strength and increases the risk of fracture. The finding of prevention and treatment methods is an urgent issue. Since cancellous bone is metabolically more active than cortical bone, cancellous bone is used for diagnosis of osteoporosis. There are a lot of studies about stress analysis of cancellous bone, and quantities and orientation of trabecular bone that make up the cancellous bone. These studies reported that the trabecular structures contribute to the mechanical properties of cancellous bone. It is considered that the mechanical property of trabecular is based on the assumption that it is constant regardless of the direction and site orientation. However, literature evaluating the mechanical properties of a single trabecular yields a wide dispersion of the results; the mechanical properties of trabecular bone has not been clarified yet. It is necessary to reduce the dispersion of test results to allow for quantitative evaluation of the mechanical properties of trabecular bone and is essential to evaluate the strength of cancellous bone. In this study, single trabecular specimens were polished to bending test specimens in rectangular shape. X-ray μCT was used to obtain shape of trabecular bone specimens. Moreover, three point bending tests were conducted on these specimens and the bending elastic modulus and strength were obtained. Bending elastic modulus and bending strength of the trabecular bone were almost the same value regardless of the direction of each axis. Mechanical properties of trabecular by the bending test do not depend on the orientation of cancellous bone.