Axial-Shear Failure Behavior of Human Femoral Trabecular Bone

An understanding of the failure of trabecular bone subjected to multiaxial loading has relevance in the mechanics of trauma and bone implant interfaces. The development of computer aided tomography-based computer models allow predictions of the mechanical behavior of whole bones when subjected to stress states too complex to be described analytically (Ford et al., 1996; Keyak et al., 1998; Oden et al., 1998). However, these models cannot confidently predict the failure of the trabecular bone without an experimentally validated multiaxial failure criterion.