Studies on shear behavior of cortical bone using Iosipescu test and FEM

Bone is considered to be stronger in compression and weaker in shear. Therefore the study on shear properties of cortical bone is important to identify the fracture behavior of cortical bone. Shear properties of the cortical bone are usually evaluated by torsion testing. During torsion test bone undergoes through a tensile fracture rather than expected spiral fracture. This testing method involves preparation of circular samples which require complex machining operations contrary to the samples in Iosipescu which are much easier to procure. This paper studies the shear behavior of a bovine femoral cortical bone using the Iosipescu test and Finite Element Method (FEM) using commercial based software known as ABAQUS. Load-Displacement curves of the bone have been obtained with the help of FE models of Iosipescu test. The stiffness values of cortical bone have been calculated using the load-displacement curves obtained from the FE simulation. This way stiffness values were evaluated for three different locations of cortical bone diaphysis namely upper, middle and lower locations. The main motive of this analysis is to identify an experimental setup for shear testing of bone which comes in handy and is as accurate as others.