Experimental Determination of Osteon Permeability

Measurement of a permeability of a single osteon is still one of the most demanding tasks in bone mechanics to be solved. The challenges are the size of the osteon and the limitations or absence of the tools that can take a direct measurement. Determining the permeability in an osteon may help to best understand the fluid flow occurring in cortical bone and its role in mechanotransduction. In this communication, both analytical and experimental approaches are proposed to estimate the permeability of a single osteon. The Young modulus and Poisson’s ratio of the bone matrix and the osteon under undrained conditions will be determined using acoustic microscopy and mechanical testing. Based on the unconfined compression test results, the permeability of the osteon can be obtained by curve fitting of the data of the compressive ramp loading to the transverse isotropic osteon analytical model that we developed in Gailani and Cowin [1].