Stress analysis of the femur

Abstract

The determination of stress development in long bones is complicated by issues related to the bone geometry and muscular loading. A major objective of this work is to construct an algorithm that enables one to reconstruct the geometry and anthropometric data of bone from limited cross sectional measurements. A stress analysis of bone is then carried out under the assumption of a biajdal mode of bending. In particular, the femur is treated as a three dimensional, transversely isotropic, elastic body subject to both compressive and shearing forces, along with bending and twisting moments. The loading conditions are derived from a direct dynamic model of gait and refiect efFects of joint reaction forces and muscular attachments.