All ETDs from UAB

Advisory Committee Chair

David L Littlefield

Advisory Committee Members

Alan Eberhardt

Amjad Javed

Jong-Eun Kim

Majd Zayzafoon

Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

2012

Degree Name by School

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME) School of Engineering

Abstract

This paper seeks to advance the knowledge base for bones and how they respond to mechanical stimuli through the use of multiscale modeling. First, a simple but effective approach for segmenting bone from computed tomography images using MATLAB is presented. Using edge detection and gradient operators to identify areas of bone within an image allows for much more accurate and consistent bone segmentation than simpler techniques like thresholding. This technique is applied to the femur of a female mouse for use in further modeling and testing. Next a representative volume element (RVE) for lamellar cortical bone is created based on results published by previous researchers. This RVE is subjected to six separate relaxation tests in LS-DYNA to extract the anisotropic elastic stiffness matrix for lamellar bone. Results of the stress distributions in each of the primary bone axes as well as shear stresses are presented for each test.

Included in

Engineering Commons

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