Authors:

Grant Andrew Belush

Date Created:

Not specified

Course Title:

Professor:

Not specified

About Paper:

Tibial stress fractures are common injuries typically caused by increased repetitive activities like running and walking. However, they can be difficult to predict because traditional methods to detect bone fragility, such as bone mineral density (BMD) measurements, are often ineffective. Novel ultrashort echo time (UTE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) gives insight into bone water content and its spatial distribution, providing new information about bone quality which can be used to develop more accurate finite element (FE) models for better fracture prediction. This project aims to develop UTE-MRI based FE models to predict bone stress injury. The model results were compared to experimental mechanical testing results to determine the effectiveness of the FE models in predicting whole-bone mechanical properties. To start, UTE-MRI images of each bone were acquired and used to create bound water maps for each bone. FE models were then created with material properties derived from the bound water maps, and they were used to simulate four-point bending to predict the stiffness and yield load for each bone. These values were compared to properties derived from experimental four-point bending low-cycle fatigue tests. This study compares the results of bound water-based FE models of the human tibia to experimental mechanical testing results. It is expected that FE model accuracy will be improved by incorporating bound water information for each bone, allowing for better prediction of whole-bone mechanical properties. This could have future clinical applications to accurately predict bone stress injuries. Keywords: Bone Mechanical Properties; UTE-MRI; Finite Element Analysis; Stress Fractures

Source:

Purdue University / 2025

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Grant Andrew Belush