Concurrent consideration of cortical and cancellous bone within continuum bone remodelling

TL;DR

This paper introduces a continuum bone remodelling model that simultaneously considers cortical and cancellous bone, demonstrating that their interaction significantly influences bone density evolution predictions.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to model both cortical and cancellous bone together, highlighting their interaction's impact on bone remodelling simulations.

Findings

Considering cortical bone alters cancellous bone density evolution

Interaction between bone types is significant in density predictions

Model options show cortical bone's influence cannot be neglected

Abstract

Continuum bone remodelling is an important tool for predicting the effects of mechanical stimuli on bone density evolution. While the modelling of only cancellous bone is considered in many studies based on continuum bone remodelling, this work presents an approach of modelling also cortical bone and the interaction of both bone types. The distinction between bone types is made by introducing an initial volume fraction. A simple point-wise example is used to study the behaviour of novel model options, as well as a proximal femur example, where the interaction of both bone types is demonstrated using initial density distributions. The results of the proposed model options indicate that the consideration of cortical bone remarkably changes the density evolution of cancellous bone, and should therefore not be neglected.