Gianluca Tozzi

An open-cell metallic foam was employed as an analogue material for human trabecular bone to interface with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) bone cement to produce composite foam–cement interface specimens. The stress-displacement curves of the specimens were obtained experimentally under tension, shear, mixed tension and shear (mixed-mode), and step-wise compression loadings. In addition, under step-wise compression, an image-guided failure assessment (IGFA) was used to monitor the evolution of micro-damage of the interface. Microcomputed tomography (µCT) images were used to build a subject-specific model, which was then used to perform finite element (FE) analysis under tension, shear and compression. For tension–shear loading conditions, the strengths of the interface specimens were found to increase with the increase of the loading angle reaching the maximum under shear loading condition, and the results compare reasonably well with those from bone–cement interface. Under compression, however, the mechanical strength measured from the foam–cement interface is much lower than that from bone–cement interface. Furthermore, load transfer between the foam and the cement appears to be poor under both tension and compression, hence the use of the foam should be discouraged as a bone analogue material for cement fixation studies in joint replacements.

Measurements of three-dimensional displacements in a scaffold implant under uniaxial compression have been obtained by two digital volume correlation (DVC) methods, and compared with those obtained from micro-finite element models. The DVC methods were based on two approaches, a local approach which registers independent small volumes and yields discontinuous displacement fields; and a global approach where the registration is performed on the whole volume of interest, leading to continuous displacement fields. A customised mini-compression device was used to perform in situ step-wise compression of the scaffold within a micro-computed tomography (μCT) chamber, and the data were collected at steps of interest. Displacement uncertainties, ranging from 0.006 to 0.02 voxel (i.e. 0.12-0.4 μm), with a strain uncertainty between 60 and 600 με, were obtained with a spatial resolution of 32 voxels using both approaches, although the global approach has lower systematic errors. Reduced displacement and strain uncertainties may be obtained using the global approach by increasing the element size; and using the local approach by increasing the number of intermediary sub-volumes. Good agreements between the results from the DVC measurements and the FE simulations were obtained in the primary loading direction as well as in the lateral directions. This study demonstrates that volumetric strain measurements can be obtained successfully using DVC, which may be a useful tool to investigate mechanical behaviour of porous implants.

ABSTRACT In this study the compressive cyclic behavior of bovine cancellous bone and three open-cell metallic foams including AlSi7Mg foams (30 and 45 ppi) and CuSn12Ni2 foam (30 ppi) has been investigated. Multi-step fatigue tests are carried out to study the deformation behavior under increasing compressive cyclic stresses. Short multi-step tests, with steps of 300–500 cycles, are used to identify the cyclic yield stress (σcy) and the stress at failure (σfail). The residual strain accumulation, or cyclic creep, is observed during these tests. Long multi-step tests, with 5000 cycles at selected stress ranges (0.4σcy, 0.6σcy, 0.8σcy, and σcy), are also carried out to study further the compressive fatigue behavior of the materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has been used to characterize the microstructure of the foams and the bone prior to and post mechanical testing. Particular attention is paid to the role of cyclic creep and buckling in the failure processes. The results show that residual strain accumulation seems to be the predominant driving force leading to failure of foams and bones. Although foams and bone fail by the same mechanism of cyclic creep, the deformation behavior at the transient region of each step is different for both materials. The maximum strain εmax of foams decrease suddenly during the change of each step. This behavior may be explained by the rapidly developing microdamage in the cell struts that occur at the transient region of each step. Bones show more gradual decrease of εmax, where microdamage may be accumulated progressively during the fatigue test.

In this study, two micro finite element models of trabecular bone–cement interface developed from high resolution computed tomography (CT) images were loaded under compression and validated using the in situ experimental data. The models were then used under tension and shear to examine the load transfer between the bone and cement and the micro damage development at the bone–cement interface. In addition, one models was further modified to investigate the effect of cement penetration on the bone–cement interfacial behaviour. The simulated results show that the load transfer at the bone–cement interface occurred mainly in the bone cement partially interdigitated region, while the fully interdigitated region seemed to contribute little to the mechanical response. Consequently, cement penetration beyond a certain value would seem to be ineffective in improving the mechanical strength of trabecular bone–cement interface. Under tension and shear loading conditions, more cement failures were found in denser bones, while the cement damage is generally low under compression.