Assessment of elastic coefficients of child cortical bone using resonant ultrasound spectroscopy

The assessment of the anisotropic elastic properties of non-pathological child cortical bone remains a challenge for the biomechanical engineering community and an important clinical issue. Resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) can be used to determine bone stiffness coefficients from the mechanical resonances of bone specimens. Here, a RUS protocol was used on 7 fibula specimens from children (mean age 14 ± 3 years) to estimate the whole elastic stiffness tensor of non-pathological child cortical bone considered as orthotropic. Despite a small number of sample, results are consistent with this hypothesis, even if a trend towards transverse isotropy is discussed. Indeed, the average values of the 9 independent stiffness coefficients obtained in this study for child bone are: C₁₁ = 16.73 ± 0.19 GPa, C₂₂ = 16.19 ± 0.12 GPa, C₃₃ = 24.47 ± 0.30 GPa, C₄₄ = 4.14 ± 0.08 GPa, C₅₅ = 4.16 ± 0.07 GPa, C₆₆ = 3.13 ± 0.05 GPa, C₁₂ = 10.14 ± 0.20 GPa, C₁₃ = 10.67 ± 0.27 GPa, C₂₃ = 10.25 ± 0.14 GPa.