FATIGUE OF BONE AND BONES - AN ANALYSIS BASED ON STRESSED VOLUME

The measured fatigue strength of a material can be affected by specime n size:tests using a large stressed volume may show a low fatigue stre ngth due to the increased probability of finding weak regions. A Weibu ll analysis revealed an important size effect in bone and predicted th is effect with an accuracy of 12%. This approach also explained appare nt inconsistencies in the published data and made it possible to separ ate and quantify the effects of frequency, loading mode, and material source. The effect of frequency is the same for human and bovine bone, and the differences between different types of loading (tension, comp ression, and bending) are small (maximum: 12%). By extrapolating to th e volume of whole bones, it is concluded that large bones will have a fatigue strength much lower, by a factor of 2-3, than that measured by conventional tests. Failure within 10(5) cycles is expected to occur at cyclic stresses of 23-30 MPa in human long bones and of 32-43 MPa i n bovine bones. Repair is therefore needed to prevent failure at physi ological stress levels.