Impact damage response of osteoporosis hip bone

Osteoporosis and sideways fall are the two major determinants of proximal femur fractures among the elderly. More than 90% were reportedly caused by falls from standing height [2], though in some cases there is no clear evidence of falls or trauma. From a biomechanical perspective, hip fractures are thought to be caused in real settings by different directions of loading.

The force on the proximal femur during a fall causing hip fracture depends significantly on the density, thickness and stiffness of the body during impact. The process of fracture and its healing can only be understood in terms of structure and composition of the bone and also its mechanical properties. Bone fracture analysis investigates various failure mechanisms under different loading conditions. An accurate explicit finite element (FE) method would help scientists and researchers to predict the impact damage to bone structures.
In this paper, the effect of low velocity impact on the osteoporosis hip in ageing people will be studied in LSDYNA. In the first part, SIMPLEWARE software is used to create a 3D reconstruction and registration of semi-transparent CT scan image data. In the second part, the effect of cortical thickness and impact velocity on the energy absorption of the hip during a fall will be investigated on a 3D model. State-of-the-art techniques are used.
In part 3, validity of the FE method is evaluated by analysing the strength in the fracture of the contra-lateral femur. We examined whether our FE method could create a fracture in the contra-lateral femur which was identical to the real fracture. Discovering the critical impulse loading of hip would establish a benchmark to improve the design of safety instruments and consequently wellbeing of elderly people.