Femoral fracture load and damage localisation pattern prediction based on a quasi-brittle law : linear and non-linear FE meshing

TL;DR

This study develops a quasi-brittle damage model for femoral fracture prediction using finite element analysis, demonstrating improved accuracy with nonlinear meshing and validating against experimental data.

Contribution

Introduces a quasi-brittle damage model for femur fracture prediction and compares linear versus nonlinear meshing, showing enhanced results with nonlinear mesh.

Findings

Good agreement between numerical and experimental load-displacement curves

Computed fracture loads closely match experimental data (R^2=0.825)

Nonlinear meshing improves simulation accuracy

Abstract

Finite element analysis is one of the most used tool for studying femoral neck fracture. Nerveless, consensus concerning either the choice of material characteristics, damage law and /or geometric models (linear on nonlinear) still remains unreached. In this work, we propose a numerical quasi-brittle damage model to describe the behavior of the proximal femur associated with two methods to evaluate the Young modulus. 8 proximal femur finite elements models were constructed from CT scan data (4 donors, 3 men; 1 woman). The results obtained from the numerical computations showed a good agreement between the numerical curves (load-displacement) and the experimental ones. The computed fracture loads were very close to the experimental ones (R 2 =0.825, Relative error =6.49%). The damage patterns were similar to those observed during the failure during sideway fall experimental simulation. Finally, a comparative study based on 32 simulations, using a linear and nonlinear mesh has led to the conclusion that the results are improved when a nonlinear mesh is used. In summary, the numerical quasi-brittle model presented in this work showed its efficiency to find the experimental values during the simulation of the side fall.