Medical Engineering & Physics 32 (2010) 553–560

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Medical Engineering & Physics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/medengphy

Some factors that affect the comparison between isotropic and orthotropic
inhomogeneous finite element material models of femur
Haisheng Yang a,b , Xin Ma b,c , Tongtong Guo a,∗
a
Biomechanics Laboratory, Department of Mathematics and Natural Science, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China
b
Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Integration Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences/The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen 518067, China
c
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The objective of this study was to investigate whether there were significant differences between isotropic
Received 28 April 2009 and orthotropic inhomogeneous material models of femur by taking into account the effects of some fac-
Received in revised form 8 January 2010 tors, such as comparative parameters, loading conditions and mesh refinement. Three femoral meshes of
Accepted 8 January 2010
increasing refinement levels were assigned isotropic and orthotropic material properties. Then six dif-
ferent loading conditions were separately applied to each material model. Based on the analysis results
Keywords:
of Von Mises stress and nodal displacement, eight regions of interest in femur were selected to compare
Material property
the differences between isotropic and orthotropic material models. The results showed that marked dif-
Isotropic
Orthotropic
ferences for Von Mises stress (maximum 13.25%) and nodal displacement (maximum 15.04%) appeared
Femur in the regions where the maximum absolute Von Mises stress and the maximum absolute nodal dis-
Finite element analysis placement did not occur. It was observed that the comparison results were significantly different under
different loading cases. The mesh refinement had a great influence on the comparison results, especially
for the Von Mises stresses in the regions of the femoral neck. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
differences between two material property assignments are significant, at least in some local regions.
© 2010 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The finite element (FE) method has been widely used to inves-
tigate the mechanical behavior of bone tissue [1]. Accurate FE
simulation depends on not only the exact model obtained via
three-dimensional reconstruction, but also the realistic material
properties assigned to the model. It is well known that CT images
can provide accurate information on bone geometry based on the
high contrast between the bone tissue and the surrounding soft tis-
sue [2,3]. Once the FE mesh models are generated from the CT data,
it is essential to define material properties for the models. Fortu-
nately, material properties can also be obtained from the CT data
because the relationships between Hounsfield unit (HU), bone den-
sity and mechanical property have been established [4–9]. Thus, the
process of assigning material properties into FE mesh models can
be completed using appropriate algorithms.
Most studies done in this area were based on the assumption
that bone material was isotropic and only inhomogeneous distri-
∗ Corresponding author at: E302K, Department of Mathematics and Natural Sci-
ence, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School, HIT Campus of
Shenzhen University Town, Xili, Shenzhen 518055, China. Tel.: +86 13715382285;
fax: +86 755 26033800.
E-mail address: tongtong.guo@hitsz.edu.cn (T. Guo).
bution of material properties was taken into account. The CT data
(related to the tissue density), which can be regarded as a three-
dimensional scalar field sampled over a regular grid, and the FE
mesh, which is generated from the same CT data, are perfectly
aligned in space. The only problem, then, is how to properly map
the material properties that are derived from the CT dataset into
the FE mesh. Many approaches have been proposed to perform
this task and the algorithms have been improved [10–14]. How-
ever, bone material is factually considered as being anisotropic
rather than isotropic [15]. Therefore, the inhomogeneous isotropic
material models, in theory, are inaccurate because the isotropic
material properties cannot reflect the actual structure and mechan-
ical behavior of bone.
Some researchers tried to develop orthotropic material mod-
els that need nine independent elastic constants and the principal
orientations of orthotropy, to realistically simulate bone material
properties [16]. When expressions of orthotropic elastic constants
are introduced in many studies, the most crucial problem is how to
define the orientations of orthotropy based on the anatomic struc-
ture of bone. Some invasive methods that implemented cutting or
grinding schemes were used to manually assign the principal axes
of orthotropy to FE models [17,18].
Recently, comparisons were made between isotropic and
orthotropic material models. After comparing isotropic material
property assignment with orthotropic assignment on femoral FE

1350-4533/$ – see front matter © 2010 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.medengphy.2010.01.004
554 H. Yang et al. / Medical Engineering & Physics 32 (2010) 553–560

models, it was concluded that the differences were small and bone
was a weak orthotropic material [19]. Nevertheless, the orthotropic
orientations of cortical and cancellous bone over the entire femoral
model were defined with the same global coordinate system. This
definition of the orthotropic orientations does not fit the real
anatomic structures in femur, especially in the femoral neck where
the principal orientations are distinct from those in the femoral
stem. The results, therefore, were distorted [20]. Another study
overcame above mentioned shortcomings by manually defining the
orthotropic orientations based on the real anatomical structures
of femur [18]. The conclusion indicated that no significant differ-
ence between isotropic and orthotropic material models existed for
global FE analysis. The comparisons in these studies were merely
limited to the maximum Von Mises stress or the maximum nodal
displacement. Hence, what differences are in other parts of femur
remains a problem. In addition, only one or two loading conditions
applied on the femoral models were taken into account. From what
have been discussed above, it is reasonable to believe that many
factors may affect the comparative results between isotropic and
orthotropic FE models.
The first objective of our study was to investigate whether com-
parative results would be influenced by factors such as comparative
parameters, loading conditions and mesh refinement. The second
objective was to find out if there were marked differences between
isotropic and orthotropic material models in FE analysis in regards
to the same factors.

2. Materials and methods Fig. 1. Three femoral meshes of increasing refinement levels.

2.1. CT data and finite element meshes

The CT dataset of a right femur was obtained from a
public database, which was created by the VAKHUM project
(http://www.ulb.ac.be/project/vakhum/index.html). The CT data
are in standard DICOM formats.
The FE meshes of the right femur, which were generated from
the corresponding CT dataset above, were also from the VAKHUM
project. All of the meshes are made of linear hexahedral elements. In
order to investigate the effect of mesh refinement on comparative
results, three meshes of increasing refinement levels were used
(Fig. 1). The coarsest mesh (M1) consists of 9294 nodes and 7934
elements. The medial refined mesh (M2) includes 20,279 nodes and
17,696 elements. The most refined mesh (M3) has 44,502 nodes and
39,443 elements.
where HUn represents the average value of HU for element n, Vn
the volume of the element n, (x,y,z) are the coordinates in the CT
reference system, (r,s,t) are the local coordinates in the element ref-
erence system, and J represents the Jacobian of the transformation.
The order of the numerical integration can be chosen manually. The
value of HU(x,y,z) in a point of the CT domain is determined by a
tri-linear interpolation between the values of eight adjacent grid
points.
2.2.2. Step 2: Determine the density for each element
It has been demonstrated that the relationship between HU and
apparent density is linear [12]. The calibration equation is then:

 = a + bHUn (2)
2.2. Isotropic inhomogeneous material models
where  is the average density assigned to the element n of the
For an inhomogeneous material model, every element of the mesh, and a, b are the coefficients provided by calibration.
mesh was assigned one kind of material property. The variabil- Generally speaking, a calibration phantom was used to obtain
ity of material properties within the volume of each element was the parameters of the linear regression [21]. As this study was
ignored. An isotropic material has properties at a point that are aimed to compare an isotropic material model with an orthotropic
independent of direction. In an isotropic inhomogeneous mate- material model, the calibration was the same for two models. Thus,
rial model, each element will have constant elastic modulus and comparative results will be little affected by selecting referenced
shear modulus regardless of directions. The assignment of material values for approximate calibration [11]: radiographic and appar-
properties can be divided into the following steps. ent density of water (0 HU, 1 g/cm3 ); average radiographic density
in the cortical region and apparent density value for cortical bone
2.2.1. Step 1: Calculate the average HU for each element of the (1840 HU, 1.73 g/cm3 ).
mesh
Because the CT data and each mesh are spatially registered, an
average HU value for each element of the mesh is calculated with 2.2.3. Step 3: Evaluate the elastic constants for each element
a numerical integration as follows [12]: A large number of experiments have shown that bone material
  properties could be expressed as a function of apparent density
HU(x, y, z) dV Vn
HU(r, s, t) det J(r, s, t) dV  [7]. Meanwhile, various experimental relationships between elastic
HUn =
Vn
 = (1) modulus and apparent density have been established. In the case
dV Vn
Vn of isotropic material property [7,18,19]:
 H. Yang et al. / Medical Engineering & Physics 32 (2010) 553–560 555

Fig. 2. Six applied loads and boundary conditions.

• Cortical bone: E1 = E2 = 11571.78 , E3 = 19041.64 , 12 = 0.4,

E G12 max 2 G23 max 2
E = 20653.09 ,  = 0.3, G= (3) 23 = 31 = 0.25, G12 = , G23 = ,
2(1 + ) 2
max 2
max
• Cancellous bone: G31 max 2
G31 = 2
, (6)
E max
1.64
E = 1904 ,  = 0.3, G= (4)
2(1 + )
where E is the Young’s modulus (MPa),  the apparent den-
where E is the average Young’s modulus (MPa) assigned to the ele- sity (g/cm3 ),  the Poisson’s ratio, G the shear modulus (GPa),
ment n of the mesh,  is its apparent density (g/cm3 ) and  is the and G12 max = 5.71 GPa, G23 max = 7.11 GPa, G31 max = 6.58 GPa. The
Poisson’s ratio. local coordinate systems for these parameters will be defined in an
The process of material property assignment may, in theory, additional step (Step 4).
create a different material packet for each element of the mesh.
Each material packet contains information on density, Poisson’s 2.3.1. Step 4: Definition of principal orientations
ratio, Young’s modulus and shear modulus. However, too many Since femoral bone can be recognized as orthotropic material,
material packets may exceed the material limitation of some the determination of principal material orientation based on real
FE codes and hinder FE computation, especially for the refined anatomical bone structure is essential to the realistic simulation
mesh models. Thus, it is necessary to reduce the number of of bone material properties. According to the cortical and cancel-
materials by choosing an elastic modulus interval (E). Elements lous bone structures in femur, the principal material orientation of
that have close elastic modulus will belong to the same mate- cancellous bone can be defined by the direction of the trabecular
rial packet. Here, the elastic modulus interval E was taken as structures and the principal material orientation of cortical bone
50 MPa. by the direction of the haversian system.
Bone structure is customarily recognized as confirming to
2.3. Orthotropic inhomogeneous material models ‘Wolff’s law’, which is essentially the observation that bone changes
its external shape and internal architecture in response to stresses
An orthotropic material has two or three mutually orthogonal acting on it [22]. The trabecular structure and haversian system
two-fold axes of rotational symmetry so that its mechanical prop- strongly coincide with the principal stress track in femur mainly
erties are, in general, different along the directions of each of the in order to bear tensile or compressive stresses and avoid being
axes. Such materials require nine independent variables (i.e. elastic sheared. The principal stress track is consistent with the load trans-
constants) in their constitutive matrices. The orthotropic inhomo- fer direction, from the femur head, along the direction of the neck
geneous material models can be generated by the same procedure and the stem, to the distal femur. Therefore, the directions of the
used for isotropic material assignment. However, the relationship femoral neck and stem can be approximately regarded as the prin-
between density and elastic constants in the third step is different cipal material orientations in femur.
for orthotropic material [7,16,18,19]: After separating the femoral neck and stem, different principal
material orientations were automatically assigned to two aspects:
in the femoral neck, the principal axis-z was along the direction
• Cortical bone:
of the neck, which has an angle 120◦ to the Z-axis of the global
coordinate system; in the femoral stem, the principal axis-z was
E1 = E2 = 23141.57 , E3 = 20653.09 , 12 = 0.4,
along the direction of the stem, which has an approximate angle
G12 max 2 G23 max 2 12◦ to Z-axis. The other two transverse axes (x-axis and y-axis) were
23 = 31 = 0.25, G12 = 2
, G23 = 2
,
max max defined perpendicular to the z-axis.

G31 max 2 2.4. Loading and boundary conditions

G31 = 2
, (5)
max
For M1, six loading conditions (Fig. 2) were applied to the
• Cancellous bone: isotropic models and orthotropic models [23]:
556 H. Yang et al. / Medical Engineering & Physics 32 (2010) 553–560

Fig. 3. Eight regions of interest selected for comparison in femur.

• LC1 (neutral): femoral axis vertical. Four parameters were defined to analyze the different results
• LC2 (maximum adduction): 24◦ in the frontal plane. between isotropic and orthotropic material models. The first
• LC3 (maximum abduction): 3◦ in the frontal plane. parameter () represents the difference of Von Mises stress in
• LC4 (maximum extension): −3◦ in the sagittal plane. ROI. The second parameter (u) represents the difference of nodal
• LC5 (maximum flexion): 18◦ in the sagittal plane. displacement in ROI:
• LC6 (high stress in neck): 8◦ in the frontal plane.  n 
 i − on 
 n =   (7)
on 
The single force (500 N) was applied on the femoral head surface
based on the local reference coordinate system (see XYZ in Fig. 2)  n 
 ui − uno 
defined in the literature [24]. The region over which the load was n 
u =   (8)
applied was a small area around the load point. The distal femur uno 
was fully constrained, i.e., all three DOFs were set to zero. The finite
where  n is the difference of Von Mises stress in ROI n (n = 1, 2,
element solver, MSC.Nastran, was used for numerical calculation
. . ., 8), while in and on represent the Von Mises stresses of ROI
and the linear static solution type was performed.
n in isotropic material models and orthotropic material models,
respectively. un is the difference of nodal displacement in ROI n
2.5. Comparison between isotropic and orthotropic material (n = 1, 2, . . ., 8) and uni and uno represent the nodal displacement of
models ROI n in isotropic material models and orthotropic material models,
respectively.
Based on analyses of the Von Mises stress and nodal displace- The third and fourth parameters were defined to show the
ment results, eight different regions of interest (ROI) were chosen differences of maximum Von Mises stress and maximum nodal
to show the differences. Particular attentions were paid to the neck, displacement in M1 models:
mid-diaphysis and distal diaphysis. As shown in Fig. 3, ROI1 is at  max 
 i − omax 
the superior neck and on the lateral side, ROI2 is at the inferior neck
 max
=   (9)
and on the medial side, ROI3 is at the anterior neck, ROI4 is at the omax 
posterior neck, ROI5 is at the mid-diaphysis and on the medial side,  max 
ROI6 is at the mid-diaphysis and on the lateral side, ROI7 is at the  u − umax 
umax =  i 
o
 (10)
distal diaphysis and on the medial side, and ROI8 is at the distal umax
o
diaphysis and on the lateral side. For each given region of interest,
the Von Mises stresses or the nodal displacements predicted at the where  max is the difference of maximum Von Mises stress,
surface nodes were averaged by simply adding up the values and while imax and omax represent the maximum Von Mises stresses in
dividing the results by corresponding number of nodes, then the isotropic material model and orthotropic material model, respec-
average value in the isotropic model was compared to the value in tively. umax is the difference of maximum nodal displacement
orthotropic model. and umax
i
and umax
o represent the maximum nodal displacements in

Table 1
Material properties for isotropic and orthotropic meshes of three refinement levels.

Material properties Number of materials max (g/cm3 ) E1max (MPa) E2max (MPa) E3max (MPa) G12max (MPa) G23max (MPa) G31max (MPa)

Isotropic
M1 165 1.787 12,418 4776
M2 181 1.754 11,719 4507
M3 208 1.956 16,427 6318

Orthotropic
M1 165 1.787 5757 5757 12,418 5710 7110 6580
M2 181 1.754 5590 5590 11,719 5710 7110 6580
M3 208 1.956 6637 6637 16,427 5710 7110 6580
 H. Yang et al. / Medical Engineering & Physics 32 (2010) 553–560 557

Fig. 4. Orthotropic FE model with principal material orientations presented in vector form (the pink arrows) (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure
legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article.).

Table 2
The differences of Von Mises stress in the eight regions of M1 under six loading conditions (%).

Loading conditions  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8

LC1 8.40 1.38 9.41 8.52 0.66 0.75 0.79 0.29

LC2 13.25 3.25 7.56 11.70 2.27 1.06 0.25 0.91
LC3 7.85 3.66 9.79 8.19 0.69 0.71 0.84 0.29
LC4 8.87 3.61 12.90 7.05 0.62 0.77 0.86 0.45
LC5 9.68 5.15 8.47 3.46 1.33 0.82 0.59 0.23
LC6 9.05 3.03 9.50 9.91 0.77 0.63 0.99 0.29

Table 3
The differences of nodal displacement in the eight regions of M1 under six loading conditions (%).

Loading conditions u1 u2 u3 u4 u5 u6 u7 u8

LC1 4.22 4.18 4.70 3.61 4.48 3.39 7.68 4.61

LC2 8.68 10.27 9.16 9.92 8.99 5.43 15.04 8.34
LC3 4.41 4.44 4.96 3.79 4.60 3.14 8.06 4.00
LC4 4.86 5.04 5.53 4.27 5.14 3.10 9.36 3.71
LC5 6.02 6.91 5.97 7.08 7.05 4.81 12.95 5.33
LC6 4.94 5.16 5.66 4.33 5.16 2.67 9.60 2.70

isotropic material model and orthotropic material model, respec- three orthotropic). The distribution of material properties for these
tively. models are summarized in Table 1. For orthotropic material models,
principal material orientations were also defined (Fig. 4).
3. Results

3.1. Material properties of isotropic and orthotropic models 3.2. Differences of FE analysis results between isotropic and
orthotropic models
M1, M2 and M3 were each assigned both isotropic and
orthotropic inhomogeneous material properties. As a result, there For Von Mises stress, most of the values of  5 ,  6 ,  7 and
were six different kinds of material models (three isotropic and  8 for all loading conditions were lower than 1% (Table 2). Param-
eters  1 ,  3 and  4 had large values, most of which were close
to 10%. The maximum value of  reached 13.25% under LC2. For
Table 4
The differences of maximum Von Mises stress and maximum nodal displacement
nodal displacement, the values of u7 were obviously larger than
for M1 under six loading conditions (%). the values of other parameters (about 5%), as shown in Table 3.
The maximum difference of 15.04% was found in ROI7 under LC2.
Loading conditions LC1 LC2 LC3 LC4 LC5 LC6
As shown in Table 4, the values of  max were about 5% under
 max 1.39 3.05 1.29 1.31 0.25 1.23 the loading conditions except for LC2 and LC5. For all loading cases
umax 4.76 10.78 5.45 5.84 7.05 5.55
excluding LC2, the values of umax were about 1%.
558 H. Yang et al. / Medical Engineering & Physics 32 (2010) 553–560

Table 5
The differences of Von Mises stress in the eight regions of M1, M2 and M3 under
LC1 (%).

Mesh models  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8

M1 8.40 1.38 9.41 8.52 0.66 0.75 0.79 0.29

M2 11.24 1.56 3.27 7.89 0.19 0.82 0.80 0.43
M3 5.48 9.92 0.01 4.92 0.02 0.66 0.01 0.36

As shown in Tables 2–4, the results of stress or displacement

under LC2 and LC5 had an obvious difference compared with other
loading cases. The maximum values of , u,  max and umax
were all found under LC2.
Table 5 lists the differences of Von Mises stresses for M2 and M3
in the eight regions of interest under LC1. Table 6 lists the differ-
ences of nodal displacement for M2 and M3 in the eight regions of
interest under LC1. For each of the three different refined meshes
under LC1, the values of  in ROI5–8 were close (all were less
than 1%). Moreover, there were no marked difference for u in
ROI1–8 between three meshes. However, the change of  in
ROI1–4 seemed different: for M1, larger values appeared in ROI1,
ROI3 and ROI4; for M2, in ROI1 and ROI4; for M3, only in ROI2.

4. Discussion

Material property assignment is a fundamental step for FE anal-

ysis of biological structures. Isotropic and orthotropic mapping
algorithms have been developed, however, whether there are great
differences in computational results between using isotropic and
orthotropic models remains a problem as many factors may affect
the comparative results. Therefore, this work was aimed to inves-
tigate the differences between an isotropic material model and
an orthotropic material model by taking into account several fac-
tors, such as comparative parameters, loading conditions and mesh
refinement.
It has been demonstrated that the structure of femur is highly
Fig. 5. The positions of the maximum nodal displacement (node 6866 for LC1–6)
variable, especially to cancellous bone. Thus, a clear and exact defi- and the maximum Von Mises stress (node 8286 for LC1, LC3, LC4, LC6; node 8223
nition of the principal axes of orthotropy is impossible. In this study, for LC2; node 8178 for LC5) in M1.
the principal material orientations were approximately defined
according to the anatomic structure of femur: trabecular structure eight regions from the femoral neck and stem were selected and
of cancellous bone and haversian system of cortical bone. It is rea- four parameters were defined. There was no focus on the femoral
sonable to believe that this method is valid because the definition head and trochanter because the definitions of principal orien-
of orthotropic orientations respects the real anatomical situation tations in these places were not so exact. For Von Mises stress,
in femur. Furthermore, the density–modulus relationship used in significant differences appeared in the femoral neck, except in
this study was obtained by summarizing the experimental data in the inferior region of the neck. The largest difference of 13.25%
the literature about the direction-dependent material properties was in the ROI1 (as displayed in Table 2). In contrast, the regions
of cortical and cancellous femoral bone [7]; the axial orthotropic in the femoral stem showed little differences (almost all of the
direction was defined according to the haversian osteons for cor- values of  were less than 1%), which are consistent with the
tical bone samples and according to the trabecular structures for results in the Peng et al.’s study (values of  are less than 0.61%
cancellous bone samples. This also indicates that the definition of except one of −2.40%) [19]. Peng et al. analyzed the maximum Von
material orientation in our work is reasonable. Mises stress, which is generally produced in the femoral stem. In
The angles 120◦ and 12◦ were particular values for the femur our study, the positions of the maximum Von Mises stress under
used in our research. The geometry of femur is related to age, sex, six loading conditions were close to ROI7 (as indicated in Fig. 5).
race etc. According to the studies in literature [25,26], the average The values of the maximum Von Mises stress and the maximum
values of shaft neck angle for Indian, Asian (Chinese and Caucasians nodal displacement are displayed in Table 7. No significant dif-
in Hong Kong) and Western are 123◦ , 135◦ and 124.7◦ , respectively. ferences in maximum Von Mises stress were found, as shown in
In order to investigate the differences in stress or displacement Table 4. Consequently, the results seem to indicate that marked dif-
distribution in isotropic and orthotropic material models of femur,
Table 7
Table 6 The values of the maximum Von Mises stress and the maximum nodal displacement
The differences of nodal displacement in the eight regions of M1, M2 and M3 under for isotropic and othotropic M1 under six loading conditions.
LC1 (%).
Loading conditions LC1 LC2 LC3 LC4 LC5 LC6
Mesh models u1 u2 u3 u4 u5 u6 u7 u8
imax (MPa) 36.4 16.9 31.3 38.6 40.2 24.5
M1 4.22 4.18 4.70 3.61 4.48 3.39 7.68 4.61 omax (MPa) 35.9 16.4 30.9 38.1 40.1 24.2
M2 4.23 4.38 4.88 3.78 4.90 3.82 8.16 5.31 umax
i
(mm) 13.2 6.27 11.6 14.5 16.7 9.69
M3 3.09 3.42 3.55 2.75 3.69 2.81 6.01 3.71 umax
o (mm) 12.6 5.66 11.0 13.7 15.6 9.18
 H. Yang et al. / Medical Engineering & Physics 32 (2010) 553–560
ferences are not in the regions where the absolute stresses reach
the maximum values. This conclusion is validated for the nodal
displacement as well. In the femoral neck, the differences were
about 5% (excluding LC2 and LC5). This result is in good agree-
ment with the value (4.8%) reported by Baca et al., which only
compared the maximum nodal displacement [18]. In our study,
the maximum nodal displacement appeared at the upper surface
of the femur head (near ROI1, as shown in Fig. 5). However, the
largest difference of displacement (15.04%) was in ROI7. The max-
imum Von Mises stress or the maximum nodal displacement only
reflects the mechanical behavior of one point and the behaviors
in other parts are still unclear. More regions of interest need to
be selected if we want to comprehensively know the differences
between isotropic and orthotropic material models. Therefore,
eight locations from femoral neck and stem were selected in this
study.
Six loading conditions were applied to the femoral models in
order to investigate whether different loading cases have an influ-
ence on the comparative results. The loads cover the physiological
range of maximum hip joint reaction recorded in hip patients
during a wide range of daily activities. Under different loading
conditions, the femur will generate adduction, abduction, flexion
and extension of different degree. The effect of load cases on the
comparison of stresses or displacements between isotropic and
orthotropic material models was determined. Under the LC2, which
has an angle 24◦ in the frontal plane, and the LC5, which has an
angle 18◦ in the sagittal plane, the comparative results showed
significant differences. The femur is strongly adducted and flexed
under LC2 and LC5, respectively. As a result, larger shear stresses
are produced owing to a great bend and torsion in the femur, and
different density–modulus relationships (especially for shear mod-
ulus) probably play an important role in the comparison between
isotropic and orthotropic material models. This may be one of the
reasons why the comparison results under LC2 and LC5 are obvi-
ously different from those of other loading cases.
Three meshes with different refinement levels were used to
investigate the impact of mesh refinement on the comparative
results. Six loading conditions were applied on M1, while only the
LC1 was applied on M2 and M3 since the results under other loads
were similar with those under LC1. The differences of the nodal
displacement for every mesh were similar in the eight selected
regions. But the results of stress changed greatly in ROI1–4 and
were not in the same order for each mesh of one refinement level.
This showed that mesh refinement greatly affect the comparison
of stress in some regions of the femur.
Inhomogeneous material may have high stress and strain val-
ues concentrated in small, localized places of the FE mesh model.
Thus, the Von Mises stress for a given region was calculated by
averaging the stress values of the nodes in this region so as to avoid
stress concentration. The stress distribution is complicated in the
femoral neck and mesh refinement may have a great influence on
the computational results of stress. This may be one reason that
the comparative results of stress in the femoral neck are distinct
for each refined mesh.
The linear static solution type was selected as the small
deformation linear elastic hypothesis was made for femur. This
hypothesis is reasonable due to the following reasons. Firstly,
the isotropic or orthotropic elastic constants used in the material
models of the femur were derived from the experiments, which
assumed bone material as being linear elastic [15]. It is, therefore,
reasonable to use linear elastic constitutive laws for finite element
analysis. Secondly, small deformation assumption is most com-
monly used among the literature [27]. As displayed in Table 7, the
value about 10 mm of the maximum nodal displacement was small
enough compared to the entire femur size. This supports the small
deformation hypothesis.
559
Besides the factors considered in our study, there may be
other factors that have influence on the comparison of isotropic
and orthotropic material models. First, the density–modulus rela-
tionships derived from previous experiments were different for
isotropic and orthotropic bone material. The values of Pois-
son’s ratio for orthotropic material are totally different from
those of isotropic material. The selection of the experimental
density–modulus relationship can have a great effect on FE analy-
sis results [28]. Thus, it is reasonable to think that the comparative
results of isotropic and orthotropic material models will be changed
if different density–modulus relationships are chosen. Second, the
definition of principal orthotropic orientations is an important step
for generating orthotropic FE material models. Whether the defi-
nition is accurate, will therefore have an influence on comparative
results. Moreover, the number of material groups determined by
the elastic modulus interval may be another parameter affecting
the results of comparative analysis. These factors should be inves-
tigated in further studies.
Our study investigated whether orthotropic material properties
assignment will change the mechanical behavior of the FE model
with respect to the isotropic one. The results show that great dif-
ferences exist in some regions of the femur and some factors, like
comparative parameters, loading conditions, and mesh refinement,
affect the comparative results. Therefore, care must be taken when
orthotropic material FE models are simplified to isotropic material
models.
The method for defining principal axes of orthotropy is reason-
able and can be used in vivo in spite of low accuracy in femoral
head and trochanter parts. Many new methods for the FE simu-
lation of anisotropic material property have been introduced to
define the orientations of anisotropy in vivo, such as determining
the orthotropic directions from the local variation of the density
field [29] or computing mean intercept length (MIL) and fabric ten-
sor [30]. Future work will include the development of anisotropic
material models and the validation through experiments.
Acknowledgement
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (no. 30700165 and no. 10872061).
Conflict of interest statement
None declared.
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