INTRODUCTION Distal forearm fracture is one of the most frequently observed osteoporotic fractures which may occur as a result of low energy falls such as falls from a standing height and may be linked to the osteoporotic nature of the bone especially in the elderly. In order to improve both the diagnosis of high fracture risk individuals and the fracture prevention methods, the influence of ex...

Little is known about fracture toughness of monomer-impregnated wood biocomposites, with no data for transparent wood. For building applications, important, but the anisotropic nature generates complex stress distributions that needs to be accounted for. A four-point bending mechanics test combined digital image correlation (DIC) measurements displacement fields and finite element model updatin...

This paper characterizes the fracture toughness of layer-by-layer (LBL) manufactured thin films with elastic polyurethane, a tough polymer, and poly(acrylic acid) as a stiffening agent. A single-edge-notch tension (SENT) specimen is used to study mode I crack propagation as a function of applied loading. Experimental results for the full-field time histories of the strain maps in the fracturing...

The difficult challenge of simulating diffuse and complex fracture patterns in tough structural composites is at last beginning to yield to conceptual and computational advances in fracture modeling. Contributing successes include the refinement of cohesive models of fracture and the formulation of hybrid stress-strain and traction-displacement models that combine continuum (spatially averaged)...