Analysis of bone-composite interfacial strengths.

Abstract

The strength characteristics of the interface between bone and a bone/porous metal composite were analyzed. The metal was 316L stainless steel. The average tensile strength of bone spicules ingrown to the porous metal was 46.5 MPa. This compares to a control bone sample strength of 89.7 MPa. The difference could be due to bone location and bone immaturity. The overall intefacial tensile strength (9.59 MPa) is necessarily lower since the spicules cover only a fraction of the interfacial cross-section. The overall interfacial strength had a wide range of scatter (s = +/- 4.11 MPa). This was probably due to inherent variations in bone strength with location. A population of samples using porous metal with average pore diameters under 100 micrometers exhibited measurably lower tensile strengths.