An investigation of the effects of osteoporosis, impact intensity and orientation on human femur injuries: a parametric finite element study

Objective: Femur is the strongest, longest and heaviest bone in the human body. Due to the great importance of femur in human body, its injury may cause large numbers of disabilities and mortality. Considering various effective parameters such as mechanical properties, geometry, loading configuration, etc. can propel the study to the trustable results. Methods: A 3D finite element model of the femur was subjected to different impact loading and orientations and also material properties. In addition to a reference healthy model of analysis, a total of 14 cases including four different loading conditions, six different bone density conditions and four different load orientations were considered. Results: Findings showed that the models with higher bone density cannot considerably reduce the stress under the impact loadings but porous models receive high mechanical stress which the bone prone to injury. The stress and displacement of the bone model received more values distributed through the femoral neck. Conclusion: Porous bone models had greater stress values under an impact load. Higher and faster impacts may create multi-fracture breaks of the femur. The inferior femoral neck regions are the most vulnerable part in response to the impacts.