Measuring and modelling the mechanical and failure behaviour of bone

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The health and safety of Canadians is a fundamental priority.  Its societal importance is underscored by the Canadian government's decision to identify "health and related life sciences and technologies" as one of the four priority areas for federal research funding.   Since the skeleton plays such an important structural and protective role, the proposed research program would contribute to these federal objectives by improving our ability to measure and model the mechanical and failure behaviour of bone.  ***Within this long-term objective, two specific lines of research would be investigated.   The first would consider the structural effects of cancellous bone.  Also referred to as trabecular or spongy bone, cancellous bone is a network of bony plates and struts (referred to as trabeculae) located primarily in the ends of long bones or within vertebrae.  Both the amount and the arrangement of cancellous bone -referred to as the "architecture"- change as a function of age or disease such as osteoporosis.   These changes increase a person's susceptibility to bone fracture.  High-resolution three-dimension images of cancellous bone will be used to create numerical models capable of illuminating the important relationship between architecture and mechanical integrity.  Improving our understanding in this area will allow the medical community to more accurately measure the mechanical integrity of bone, which is critical for monitoring and assessing someone's risk of suffering an age- or disease-related fracture.****The second line of research would investigate the response of bone to sharp-force trauma.  Forensic investigators and the medicolegal community routinely use tool marks and bone fracture surfaces to estimate the amount of force required to create an injury.   To date, this information is qualitative.   A new experimental device for simulating repeatable, instrumented sharp-force impacts is currently being developed at Laurentian University.   By performing simulated impacts, under prescribed conditions, this research will provide forensic investigators with a more rigorous methodology for determining quantitative estimates of impact force.  Specifically, numerical models will be developed to relate the rate and force of an impact to the resulting injury patterns.   This research will both improve our fundamental understanding of the rate-dependent failure mechanisms of cortical bone and provide a powerful investigative tool.******This multi-pronged approach will deepen our knowledge of the mechanical and failure behaviour of bone, as well as improve our ability to model and predict these behaviours.   The transfer of this knowledge to the medical, medicolegal, and other communities, will allow this information to be applied to improve the health and safety of Canadians.**