Wave propagation in human long bones of arbitrary cross-section

The dynamic behavior of a dry long bone considered as a piezoelectric cylin der of crystal class 6 with arbitrary cross-section is presented. For the s olution of the wave propagation problem we follow the procedure proposed in a previous work (D.I, Fotiadis, G. Foutsitzi, C.V. Massalas, Wave propogat ion modeling in human long bones, Acta Mechanica 137 (1-2) (1999) 65-82). T he boundary conditions on the inner and outer lateral surface of the cylind er, which is of irregular shape, are satisfied by using the Fourier expansi on collocation method. The obtained dispersion relation is solved numerical ly and results are presented for various cross-sections and geometrical par ameters of the system. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.