Research Of Streaming Potentials In Bone

One of the important characteristics of bone tissue is that it can convert its mechanical deformations into electrical signals.This is known as the electromechanical properties including piezoelectricity and electrokinetic phenomena. The main electrokinetic phenomenon of bone is streaming potentials(SP). Researching the properties including piezoelectricity and electrokinetic phenomena is for the purpose of exploring the mechanism of stress in bone or stress generated electrical signals affecting osteocyte growth. By now,the stress-generated potentials in bone are considered to be able to accelerate the remodelling of bone. So it is necessary to study the electromechanical properties of the bone.In this paper,streaming potentials of the bone are measured.A measurement system which can be used to test spatial SP of the material under both static load and dynamic load is designed.The SPs of eight groups of specimens are tested using the experiment system under multi-loading verging on the rate of osten. Different methods of loading such as changing the loading value,loading rate and the channels where the fluid flows out are used in the test.The results of the experiment confirm that the bone can generate SP under loading.The results are compared with the SPs of the bone and bone substitutes tested by the others.The SP under static loading is linear to static pressure and instantaneous peak value of SP is also linear to instantaneous peak value of pressure, which is consistent with the theory analysis. Also, the results indicate that the loading rate and the length of specimens have little effect on the SPs.