An energy-based approach for investigating the mixed-mode fracture behavior of bone as orthotropic material

Abstract

In this paper, a new energy-based approach is proposed to predict the mixed-mode fracture of bone as the orthotropic material. The basis of the new approach named as SED-FEM is the same as the minimum strain energy density (SED) criterion. The parameter S in the SED-FEM criterion is calculated directly from finite element analysis considering the orthotropic behavior. In order to evaluate the SED-FEM approach, the fracture loads of bovine bone obtained in the previous studies for short beams under mixed-mode loading is compared with the prediction of SED-FEM. The comparison shows that the SED-FEM is able to predict the experimental fracture loads more simple and accurate than the conventional SED criterion which needs to calculate the coefficients of stress terms for orthotropic material.