Although the effects of dehydration on the mechanical behavior of cortical bone are known, the underlying mechanisms for such effects are not clear. We hypothesize that the interactions of water with the collagen and mineral phases each have a unique influence on mechanical behavior. To study this, strength, toughness, and stiffness were measured with three-point bend specimens made from the mid-diaphysis of human cadaveric femurs and divided into six test groups: control (hydrated), drying in a vacuum oven at room temperature (21 °C) for 30 min and at 21, 50, 70, or 110 °C for 4 h. The experimental data indicated that water loss significantly increased with each increase in drying condition. Bone strength increased with a 5% loss of water by weight, which was caused by drying at 21 °C for 4 h. With water loss exceeding 9%, caused by higher drying temperatures (≥70 °C), strength actually decreased. Drying at 21 °C (irrespective of time in vacuum) significantly decreased bone toughness through a loss of plasticity. However, drying at 70 °C and above caused toughness to decrease through decreases in strength and fracture strain. Stiffness linearly increased with an increase in water loss. From an energy perspective, the water-mineral interaction is removed at higher temperatures than the water-collagen interaction. Therefore, we speculate that loss of water in the collagen phase decreases the toughness of bone, whereas loss of water associated with the mineral phase decreases both bone strength and toughness.

The risk of bone fracture depends in part on tissue quality, not just the size and mass. This study assessed the postyield energy dissipation of cortical bone in tension as a function of age and composition. Specimens were prepared from tibiae of human cadavers in which male and female donors were divided into two age groups: middle aged (51 to 56 years, n ¼ 9) and elderly (72 to 90 years, n ¼ 8). By loading, unloading, and reloading a specimen with rest periods inserted in between, tensile properties at incremental strain levels were assessed. In addition, postyield toughness was estimated and partitioned as plastic strain energy related to permanent deformation, released elastic strain energy related to stiffness loss, and hysteresis energy related to viscous behavior. Porosity, mineral and collagen content, and collagen crosslinks of each specimen were also measured to determine the micro-and ultrastructural properties of the tissue. Age affected all the energy terms plus strength but not elastic stiffness. The postyield energy terms were correlated with porosity, pentosidine (a marker of nonenzymatic crosslinks), and collagen content, all of which varied significantly with age. General linear models suggested that pentosidine concentration and collagen content provided the best explanation of the age-related decrease in the postyield energy dissipation. Among them, pentosidine concentration had the greatest contribution to plastic strain energy and was the best explanatory variable of damage accumulation. ß

Collagen crosslinks are important to the quality of bone and may be contributors to the age-related increase in bone fracture. This study was performed to investigate whether age and gender effects on collagen crosslinks are similar in osteonal and interstitial bone tissues. Forty human cadaveric femurs were collected and divided into two age groups: Middle aged (42-63 years of age) and Elderly (69-90 years of age) with ten males and ten females in each group (n = 10). Micro-cores of bone tissue from both secondary osteons (newly formed) and interstitial regions (biologically old) in the medial quadrant of the diaphysis were extracted using a custom-modified, computer numerical controlled machine. The bone specimens were then analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography to determine the effects of age and gender on the concentration of mature, enzymatic crosslinks (hydroxylysyl-pyridinoline -HP and lysylpyridinoline -LP) and a non-enzymatic crosslink (pentosidine -PE) at these two bony sites. The results indicate that age has a significant effect on the concentration of LP and PE, while gender has a significant effect on HP and LP. In addition, the concentration of the crosslinks in the secondary osteons is significantly different from that in the interstitial bone regions. These results suggest that the rate of non-enzymatic crosslinking may increase while the formation of maturate enzymatic crosslinks may decrease with age. Such changes could potentially reduce the inherent quality of the bone tissue in the elderly skeleton.

Identifying the underlying mechanisms of energy dissipation during post-yield deformation of bone is critical in understanding bone fragility fractures. However, the orientation-dependence of post-yield properties of bone is still poorly understood. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the effect of loading direction on the evolution of post-yield behavior of bone using a progressive loading protocol. To do so, cylindrical compressive bone samples were prepared each in the longitudinal, circumferential and radial directions, from the mid-shaft of cadaveric femurs procured from eight middle-aged male donors (51.5 ± 3.3 years old). These specimens were tested in compression in a progressive loading scheme. The results exhibited that the elastic modulus, yield stress, and energy dissipation were significantly greater in the longitudinal direction than in the transverse (circumferential and radial) directions. However, no significant differences were observed in the yield strain as well as in the successive plastic strain with respect to the increasing applied strain among the three orientations. These results suggest that the initiation and progression of plastic strain are independent of loading orientations, thus implying that the underlying mechanism of plastic behavior of bone in compression is similar in all the orientations.

Microdamage accumulation has been identified as a major conduit for bone tissues to absorb fracture energy. Due to the poor understanding of its underlying mechanism, however, an adequate constitutive relationship between damage accumulation and the mechanical behavior of bone has not yet been established. In this study, the constitutive relationship between the damage accumulation induced by overload and the evolution of mechanical properties of bone with incremental deformation was established based on the experimental results obtained from a novel progressive loading protocol developed in our laboratory. First, a decayed exponential model was proposed to capture the damage accumulation (modulus loss) with increasing applied strain. Next, a power law function was proposed to represent the progression of plastic deformation with damage accumulation. Finally, a linear combination of the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) function and Debye function was used to depict the viscoelastic behavior of bone associated with damage accumulation. The results of this study may help develop a constitutive model for predicting the mechanical behavior of cortical bone tissues.

Bone quality can be characterized by toughness of bone which quantifies the energy required for failure. As much of the toughness of bone occurs after yielding, elucidating the underlying mechanism of post-yield behavior of bone is critical for further development of clinical strategies to predict and prevent age and disease related bone fractures. However, the underlying mechanism of the post-yield behavior of cortical bone is so far poorly understood, which makes it difficult to establish physically sound constitutive models for cortical bone that could accurately predict the mechanical behavior of the tissue. The absence of the constitutive equations has significantly hindered the application of bone mechanics in solving biomedical problems. Besides, an accurate constitutive model is always required in numerical modeling and simulating the mechanical behavior of bone under different loading conditions. Based on the experimental results obtained in our lab, the objective of this study was to develop and verify a constitutive model of cortical bone under compression, which accounted for damage accumulation, plastic deformation and viscoelastic properties.