The prevention of hip fracture is an important health issue. This common injury has profound economic and social impact on the health care system. To better understand the factors that influence femoral fracture and to be able to predict the loads required to fracture a femur, our laboratory has used a combination of experimental and computational techniques. In ongoing projects we are experimentally determining the material and failure properties of trabecular bone, the type of bone that is predominant in the femoral neck. In other studies, we are measuring the failure load of the proximal femur. Three-dimensional finite element models of the proximal femur contimuum based failure criteria for trabecular bone on models of the proximal femur. We will create user material subroutines (UMATs) for the finite element analysis package ABAQUS that model the non-linear material behavior of the bone assumin six different failure criteria. Eventually, failure load predictions m ade wit these techniques will be compared to experimentally fractured femurs. This study will help evaluate candidate failure criteria, improve the understanding of hip fracture etiology, and allow further research toward isolating the factors that influence hip fracture risk.
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