Compressive mechanical behavior and failure of the pig bone rib and correlation to its morphological characteristics

S. Aharoni, D. Rittel, K. Shemtov-Yona

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The mechanical and failure properties of bones are well documented from a structural perspective. By contrast, less is known about those properties from the material and microstructural point of view. This study combines mechanical compression of pig bone rib slices, comprising both cortical and trabecular components, together with digital image correlation records. For monotonic loading, the three classical phases of the bone response, namely elastic, plateau/softening, and hardening are observed. The first phase is characterized by a uniform state of deformation which becomes heterogeneous in the following phases, through the appearance of well-defined domains. Failure is initiated in the trabecular bone at the interfaces between those domains, where the prevailing heterogeneous deformation indicates the operation of shear or uniaxial strain components. From a microstructural point of view, using micro-CT (computed tomography) it was noticed that sub-regions with relatively combined low BV/TV (bone material volume divided by total volume) and anisotropy, whose structure is oriented perpendicularly to the loading direction, are prone to failure at the interface between heterogeneously deforming domains. A globally similar behavior is reported for aluminum foams without cortical components. Repeated loading cycles reveal a previously un-noticed response of the bone, consisting of elastic shakedown without ratcheting, with diminishing hysteretic load-displacement loops, which indicate that most of the damage is achieved during the first loading cycle. The observations reported in this paper are believed to provide important physical evidence to be included in numerical models at the verification and/or validation stages.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104767
JournalMechanics of Materials
Volume185
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2023

Keywords

  • Compression
  • Digital image correlation
  • Failure
  • Heterogeneity
  • Microstructure
  • Pig rib

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Instrumentation
  • General Materials Science

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