A novel videography method for generating crack-extension resistance curves in small bone samples

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Materials Science
• Orthopedics

Background:

• Assessing bone quality is crucial for understanding bone pathology and treatment effects.
• Fracture toughness is a key parameter for bone quality evaluation, moving towards non-linear models like J-R curves.
• Measuring crack-extension resistance curves in small bone samples is challenging due to size constraints.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate a novel
• whitening front tracking
• method for generating full fracture resistance curves in small bone samples.
• To overcome the limitations of traditional methods in assessing toughness of small bone specimens.

Main Methods:

• The study utilized videography to record crack propagation in sharp edge notched human femur samples (<1 mm×1 mm×Length).
• A custom algorithm tracked the whitening (damage) zone to generate full resistance curves (R-curves and J-R curves).
• Samples were tested in three-point bending to assess antiplane longitudinal orientation fracture toughness.

Main Results:

• The
• whitening front tracking
• method successfully generated full R-curves and J-R curves for small bone samples.
• The generated toughness curves for the antiplane longitudinal orientation were consistent with existing literature values.
• The technique demonstrated its ability to overcome small size limitations inherent in traditional methods.

Conclusions:

• The proposed
• whitening front tracking
• method is effective for generating comprehensive fracture toughness data from small bone samples.
• This technique advances the assessment of bone quality by enabling full crack extension resistance curve analysis where previously difficult.
• The method provides a valuable alternative to single-value approaches, offering deeper insights into bone material properties.