Structural capacity of the proximal femur as determined by finite element analysis

Hip fracture from falls is considered one of the most serious types of injury for the elderly. The objective of this thesis was to improve current understanding of hip fracture etiology by investigating the effects of loading conditions and age-related bone loss on the structural capacity of the proximal femur. The structural capacity includes both the cortical failure load and the trabecular failure load, which were determined by Finite Element Analysis and the Hoffman Failure Criterion. A new method was developed to obtain the failure load effectively using Hoffman Failure Criterion for linear FE models. The parametric study of the effects of load conditions on the structural capacity of the proximal femur revealed that the load locations on the femoral head were the main factors contributing to the structural capacity of the femur. The frictional resistance in hip joint had various effects on the structural capacity. Using FEA, the effect of bone density on the structural capacity of the proximal femur was also investigated. Four bone loss patterns were considered. The results showed that the “non-uniform cortical bone loss” caused a larger decrease in the structural capacity than the “uniform cortical bone loss”. The trabecular bone loss caused a limited decrease in both cortical and trabecular failure loads.