Application of Neural Network and Finite Element Method for Multiscale Prediction of Bone Fatigue Crack Growth in Cancellous Bone - Multiscale Computer Modeling in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering - page 2

Application of Neural Network and Finite
Element Method for Multiscale Prediction
of Bone Fatigue Crack Growth
in Cancellous Bone
Ridha Hambli and Nour Hattab
Abstract Fatigue damage in bone in the form of microcracks results from the
repetitive loading of daily activities. It is well known that the resistance of bone at
the organ level to fatigue fracture is a function of its resistance to the initiation and
propagation of local microcracks at a mesoscopic scale which can lead to mac-
rocrack growth at the organ level. Multiscale investigation of the relationship
between the effect of the fatigue microcrack growth at microscopic scales and the
whole bone behaviour is a subject of great interest in the research field of the
biomechanics of human bone. Several finite element models (FE) have been
developed in recent years in order to provide better insight and description
regarding bone fatigue microcrack growth. Despite the progress in this field, there
is still a lack of models integrating multiscale approaches to assess the accumu-
lation of apparent fatigue microcracks in relation with trabecular architecture into
practical FE simulations. In this chapter, a trabecular bone multiscale model based
on FE simulation and neural network (NN) computation is presented to simulate
the accumulation of trabecular bone crack density and crack length at a given
trabecular bone site during cyclic loading. The FE calculation is performed at
macroscopic level and a trained NN incorporated into a FE code is employed as a
numerical device to perform the local mesoscopic computation (the behaviour law
needed to compute the outputs at mesoscale is substituted by the trained NN). The
input data for the NN are some trabecular morphological and material factors, the
R. Hambli ( & )
Prisme Institute - MMH, 8, Rue Léonard de Vinci,
45072 Orleans Cedex 2, France
e-mail: [e-mail]
N. Hattab
ISTO, UMR 7327 - CNRS/Université d'Orléans, Campus Géosciences,
1A, rue de la Férollerie, 45071 Orleans Cedex 2, France
e-mail: [e-mail]