Micromechanics of Lamellar Bone

01.03.2007 - 31.10.2011
Research funding project
Bone metabolic diseases and the related fractures cause significant morbidity and mortality among the elderly population. They represent an important and growing burden for our western health care systems that needs to be faced. While the effect of compact and trabecular bone loss on whole bone strength is increasingly well understood, the consequences of the altered remodeling process and the use of drugs on the mechanical properties of the bone extracellular matrix remain obscure. In this context, the aim of this project is to model and quantify the relationship between the morphological and mechanical properties of the bone extracellular matrix at the lamellar level of organization. To achieve this goal, a dual modeling and experimental approach is proposed that applies the following techniques to single and multiple lamellae: homogenization theory to compute the effective anisotropic elastic properties, quantitative backscattered electron imaging (qBEI) to assess the mean degree of mineralization, quantitative polarized light microscopy (qPLM) to measure the mean orientation of the collagen fibers and indentation along multiple directions to derive the anisotropic indentation moduli of the considered representative volume element. Beyond the innovative aspect of the qPLM technique, the unprecedented combination of the modeling and experimental methods at the lamellar level and the gained basic knowledge on the mechanics of bone tissue, the project will provide the first tools to predict the variations in mechanical properties of the human bone extracellular matrix from measurable morphological data. These tools will, in turn, allow to evaluate the biomechanical consequences of metabolic bone diseases on the strength of whole bones and hopefully benefit future patients. The project will contribute to train two PhD students in engineering sciences, involve a national cooperation with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Osteology as well as an international cooperation with the Max Planck Institute of colloids and interfaces and take full advantage of a recently inaugurated laboratory for nano- and micromechanics of biological and biomimetic materials at the Vienna University of Technology.

People

Project leader

Project personnel

Institute

Grant funds

  • FWF - Österr. Wissenschaftsfonds (National) Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

Research focus

  • Biological and Bioactive Materials: 40%
  • Computational System Design: 10%
  • Materials Characterization: 10%
  • Modeling and Simulation: 40%

Keywords

GermanEnglish
BiomechanikBiomechanics
KnochenBone
HomogenisierungHomogeneization
Mikromechanikmicromechanics
NanoindentationNanoindentation

External partner

  • Max Planck Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung
  • Ludwig Bolzmann Inst.f Osterologie, UKH Meidling

Publications