Progressive Energy Dissipations of Human Cortical Bone in Compression

Bone fracture has imposed a significant burden on the health of society. The “bone quality” is used to refer to factors affecting bone fracture risk [1]. Energy dissipation till fracture, known as toughness, is a major measure of bone quality [2]. However, underlying mechanisms of energy dissipation in bone is still not clear. It has been well documented that the post-yield behavior of bone determines the major part of the toughness of bone [3, 4]. Therefore, it is important to study post-yield behaviors of human bone, especially the different pathways for energy dissipation, in order to better understand how age-related change affects bone quality. Bone behaves differently under different loading modes [5]. Different from loading in tension, after reaching the maximum stress, cortical bone in compression can continue to bear load till large deformation without brittle failure and dramatic reduction in elastic modulus [5, 6]. However, few studies of progression of post-yield behaviors of cortical bone in compression were reported in the literature.