Comparative Evaluation of Stress Concentration Generated on Human Femur Structure Using Meshfree Software

Abstract

Norway is one of the countries with the highest registered incidence of hip fractures in the world. About 60% of the hip fractures are in the femoral neck, few in the caput and the rest are in the trochanteric region, called trochanteric, pertrochanteric or intertrochanteric fractures. Numerical modeling allows the study of the bone mechanical behavior and the prediction of different trauma caused by accidents without exposing humans to real tests. In this work, structural analysis is carried out on femur bone which is modeled from a CT scan DICOM file and material properties are assigned. Loading conditions are based on the force which exerts on the femur during the daily routine activities. The analysis is carried out with two different boundary conditions and vertical loads of 25 kg, 35 kg, 70 kg, 125 kg, and 200 kg applied in both conditions. Two finite element software programs (ABAQUS® and ANSYS®) and meshless software (SimSolid®) were used to compare these results. They exhibited similar behavior in regions with the highest concentrations of mechanical stress. The use of meshless software Simsolid proved to be effective at detecting higher stress levels considering different factors that exist in biomechanical simulations.