On Measuring of Overall Mechanical Properties of Small Animal Bones using Grid Method

Overall mechanical properties of bones strongly depend on their microstructure. They can be determined by developing adequate micromechanics modeling or by direct experimental measurements. Both approaches are important for a better understanding of the connection between the bone’s microstructure and resulting macro-properties. In this work, a simple experimental method is proposed for the determination of the longitudinal Young’s modulus and Poisson’s coefficient of small, and especially short, bones, based on a combination of compression and grid method. The developed experimental set-up allows measuring the displacement and strain distribution on the surface of the bone sample subjected to a compressive test, as well as the longitudinal Young’s modulus and Poisson’s coefficient. Some results for the determined macroproperties of small bones are presented and compared with the results obtained using a more sophisticated method – the Digital Image Correlation (DIC) one.