Abstract

We study elastic moduli of trabecular bone. Trabecular bone structure is very complex due to its randomness and spatial heterogeneity. To simplify the analysis one can choose to represent bone as having an idealized periodic structure. In this thesis we model bone as having a periodic prismatic structure, either two- or three-dimensional. More specifically, we are interested in predicting the apparent elastic moduli of such an idealized model of trabecular bone. We conduct our analysis using a finite element method (ANSYS). We investigate the effect of mesh size, the mismatch in moduli (elastic modulus of bone versus bone marrow), the size of "region of observation", the effects of bone structures geometries, and boundary conditions on the elastic moduli of the idealized models of trabecular bone. This research can give guidance in determining the sufficient size of bone samples used in experiments or computations so the effect of boundary conditions is minimized. These results are also applicable to other porous/cellular materials.