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Journal of Experimental Biology, Vol 202, Issue 18 2495-2503, Copyright © 1999 by Company of Biologists

JOURNAL ARTICLES

What determines the bending strength of compact bone?

JD Currey
Department of Biology, University of York, York YO10 5YW, UK. jdc1@york.ac.uk.

The bending strength of a wide variety of bony types is shown to be nearly linearly proportional to Young's modulus of elasticity/100. A somewhat closer and more satisfactory fit is obtained if account is taken of the variation of yield strain with Young's modulus. This finding strongly suggests that bending strength is determined by the yield strain. The yield stress in tension, which might be expected to predict the bending strength, underestimates the true bending strength by approximately 40 %. This may be explained by two phenomena. (1) The post-yield deformation of the bone material allows a greater bending moment to be exerted after the yield point has been reached, thereby increasing the strength as calculated from beam formulae. (2) Loading in bending results in a much smaller proportion of the volume of the specimens being raised to high stresses than is the case in tension, and this reduces the likelihood of a weak part of the specimen being loaded to failure.
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