On the effects of a surrounding medium and phase split in coupled bone simulations

Abstract

AbstractIn our previous contributions we established a multiscale, multiphase material model for the simulation of cancellous bone with the novel idea of including the full coupling of mechanical, electric and magnetic effects, which could be used for example, for the early detection of osteoporosis. While our calculations have already shown promising results, our previous approach lacks very important aspects, strongly limiting the applicability of our findings. In this paper we extend our base model by considering the effect of a surrounding medium on our bone specimen, using improved boundary conditions and differentiating between cortical bone, bone marrow and spongy bone to better reflect the physiological properties of bone. We show numerical results and compare our calculations to our previous modeling.