BONE FINITE ELEMENT MODELING FROM MICRO-COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY: VALIDATION OF A NEW

ORTHOTROPIC MATERIAL MODEL WITH FUSED DEPOSITION MODELING

*Su, R.; **Rizvi, G.; *Boyd,S.K.
*Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
** Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Method
An orthotropic material model was introduced into the FE solver to
replace the generalized isotropic material model. A simple solid model
with a known analytical solution was used to validate the FE simulation
results. Secondly, a canine femur sample image (7,078 elements) was
chosen as the input model to test our FE simulation. The models actual
size is 0.85x0.85x0.85 mm and was scanned (micro-CT 40, Scanco
Medical, Bassersdorf, Switzerland) at a nominal resolution of 34 m.
With the same geometry, loading and boundary conditions, another model
was set as an isotropic material for comparison. These two models were
solved in our FE (FAIM; an iterative solver) and commercial FE software
ABAQUS (a direct solver). The results were tested against each other.
For determination of the orthotropic material properties, the nine
elastic constants were determined from experiments on solid FDM
(FDM2000, Eden Prairie, USA) samples. Compression tests and torsion
tests following ASTM standards were performed to determine three
Youngs moduli (E1,E2,E3), three shear moduli (G1,G2,G3) and three
poissons ratios (?12, ?23, ?31) of the FDM structure. MATLAB and
statistical software (named R) were used for data post-processing.
FDM models with bone microstructure were fabricated from the
same FDM machine. Physical experiments will be performed on these
scaled FDM bone models with orthotropic material properties. The direct
measures will be used to validate the FE simulation results.

Results
The orthotropic model was solved using the iterative FE solver. Two
models (Figure 1) show the strain energy density (SED) obtained from
both the isotropic and orthotropic models. Also, an example of the

comparison of iterative solver (FAIM) and direct solver solution

(ABAQUS) are shown (Figure 2).
The nine elastic coefficients of the FDM models were determined.
The Youngs moduli values in transverse directions 1 and 2 , E1 and E2
are similar. However, the value of E3, is significantly different from E1
and E2 (p=0.0002). The same phenomenon applies to the shear moduli.
Our results in compression are similar to Ahns data[3].
The FDM scaled bone model was built to a 25:1 scale. The
comparison between the prototype and the 3D original image is shown
(Figure 3).

Figure 1. SED of the a) isotropic and b) orthotropic models.

Faim

Abaqus

25

Von-Mises Value

20

15

10

273

265

257

249

241

233

225

217

209

201

193

185

177

169

161

153

145

137

129

121

97

113

89

105

81

73

65

57

49

41

33

25

17

0
1

Introduction
Bone is a dynamic, living tissue that is highly adaptive to its
environment. With bone disease such as osteoporosis, the bones internal
structure becomes more porous and loses bone mass. Left untreated,
osteoporosis could result in spontaneous fractures leading to
compromised mobility. Detection of these structural changes within the
bone tissue is essential in the successful treatment of bone disease as well
as prevention of these injuries to the weakened bone tissue.
The recent development of micro-computed tomography ( CT)
allows non-destructive, three-dimensional analysis of bone. The data
obtained can be used to generate finite element (FE) models to simulate
bones mechanical properties and aid in the prediction and diagnosis of
orthopaedic diseases. With the use of in vivo CT, the newly developed
FE simulation of bone mechanics can be evaluated over time.
It is commonly postulated that local stress or strain is related to
stimuli for bone modeling. A CT-based FE bone simulation solver
(FAIM) was developed in our laboratory to determine mechanical stresses
on bone at a tissue level. It can model the microstructure of the bone
samples with millions of isotropic hexahedral elements and solve them
with a special solver[1,2]. However, validation of the FE simulation is
problematic because it is difficult to perform experiments on 1:1 scaled
bone.
Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) provides the solution for this
problem because the prototype of the FDM can be scaled up so that local
stress values can be measured in an experiment using strain gauges.
However, due to the formation process of the FDM, the material structure
of the prototype has orthotropic properties. This requires the use of
orthotropy to be incorporated into the material model (FAIM) for
validation.
Therefore, the goals are:
To introduce orthotropic material properties into large-scale
FE solver
To experimentally determine nine elastic coefficients of FDM
materials
To model scaled FDM prototypes of bone with orthotropic
material properties and validate the FE simulation with direct
measures from experiments.

Element Number

Figure 2. Von Mises value in an orthotropic model from an iterative

(FAIM, red curve) and a direct solver (ABAQUS, green curve).

Figure 3. a) 3D image data and b) scaled 25:1 FDM prototype.

Conclusions
Our customized FE software was modified successfully to solve
orthotropic models. Nine elastic coefficients (E1,E2,E3, G1,G2,G3, ?12, ?23,
?31) of FDM models were determined as to be transversely isotropy which
is a special case of orthotropy. These nine coefficients were used as the
material properties input in the orthotropic model. FDM bone models
were scaled up and constructed. The physical experiments on the FDM
bone models for the validation of our FE simulation results will be
performed this summer. This project provides a new orthotropic material
model for large-scale FE modeling of bone microstructure. This model
can use detailed 3D data to predict bone failure and bone disease noninvasively. The scaled models from FDM with transversely isotropy will
allow direct validation of the FE solver results.
References
1. Boyd,S.K. Mechanical and architectural bone adaptation in early stage
experimental osteoarthritis. 2002. J. Bone Miner Res.
2.Van Rietbergen,B. A new method to determine trabecular bone elastic
properties and loading using micromechanical finite-element
models.1995. J. Biomechanics.
3. Ahn,S. Anisotropic material properties of fused deposition modeling
ABS. 2002. Rapid Prototyping.

5th Combined Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Societies of Canada, USA, Japan and Europe

Poster No: 338