Determination of elastic coefficients of bone and composite materials by acoustic immersion technique

Elastic properties of single parts of a human skeleton are necessary to know for modelling bone tissue-implants interactions as well as for diagnostic purposes. This paper contributes to the methodology of the evaluation of elastic properties of bones by the ultrasonic wave inversion. The method was developed on composite structures such as plates and cylindrical shells. Final results are then demonstrated on the bovine cortical bone specimen. Properties are supposed to exhibit an orthotropic or a transversally isotropic symmetry. Quasi-longitudinal and quasi-transversal waves are generated from the wave diffraction on the liquid/specimen interface. Wave velocity fields obtained by the ultrasonic scanning technique are used as an input to the inversion procedure for all elastic constants determination. Experimental results are confronted with the numerical modelling of the wave propagation and the stability of resulting data is evaluated by the statistical method based on the Monte-Carlo simulation. The suggested approach has a potential for the qualify of such measurements performed on fresh bones and also for improvement in-situ ultrasonic techniques.