Abstract

A new non-destructive method was applied in order to assess bone integrity. The method is based on measurement of bone dynamic characteristics (MDF and QF) by applying vibration excitation in the range of acoustic frequencies, in the form of an acoustic sweep signal. The method has been already applied on metallic structures and composites, including animal bones and has shown the potential to become a valuable assessment tool for monitoring bone structural changes. The measured characteristics are directly related with stress concentration due to discontinuities in the material of the bone, such as changes in porosity due to osteopenia. In turn, stress concentration is known to cause fracture in such materials. In this work, sheep femora were split in cuts and tested to detect changes in MDF - QF, BMD (kg/m2), RS and IEF, without the effect of soft tissue. MDF - QF are shown to be the best indicators and measures of the tendency of the bone to fracture, as compared to the conventional methods (BMD and RS) and to the absolute strength measure (IEF).