Validation of FE models for Bone from the Organ to the Tissue Level

Osteoporotic fractures of the central skeleton represent a major health problem. Computed tomography (CT) based, subject specific multi-scale finite element (FE) models represent an interesting approach to investigate bone strength non-invasively. However, every model before a translation to clinical applications needs to be carefully validated in vitro with reliable experiments to quantify to what extent they can predict what they were designed for. This seminar will focus on the validation of FE models of bone at two different dimensional scales. Quantitative Computed Tomography based FE models of the proximal femur and thoracolumbar vertebral body were compared with experiments and standard clinical tools to evaluate the predictive ability of such models at the organ level. Moreover, a combination of high resolution scanning, stepwise loading and deformable image registration was used to validate microCT based FE models of cortical and trabecular bone samples at the tissue level. In particular, the accuracy and precision of the experimental procedure