[Bone remodelling model including mechanism of damage and repair]

From the visual angle of mechanics, bone remodelling plays an important role in adapting to load environment and repairing microcracks. In order to describe the process of bone remodelling explicitly, we introduced a bone remodelling model representing the biological features of damage/repair in bone. Based on Basic Multicellular Units (BMUs), the model embodies not only the mechano-transduction of osteocytes' response to mechanical stimuli, but also the biological process of the randomly ocurring microcracks that are resorbed by osteoclasts and then refilled by osteoblasts. A 2-D trabecular bone finite element model was used as an initial configuration in the research. The developments in bone microstructure and material properties have been monitored in the course of 10 simulated years. The conclusions are: (1) Initially, trabecular bone changes prominently, but it tends to be stable later on; (2) The material properties of trabecular bone in compression are much better than in tension.