Femoral fracture load and damage localisation pattern prediction based on a quasi-brittle law : linear and non-linear FE meshing.

Finite element analysis is one of the most used tool for studying femoral neck fracture. Nerveless, consensus concerning either the choice of material characteristics, damage law and /or geometric models (linear on nonlinear) still remains unreached. In this work, we propose a numerical quasi-brittle damage model to describe the behavior of the proximal femur associated with two methods to evaluate the Young modulus. 8 proximal femur finite elements models were constructed from CT scan data (4 donors, 3 men; 1 woman). The results obtained from the numerical computations showed a good agreement between the numerical curves (load-displacement) and the experimental ones. The computed fracture loads were very close to the experimental ones (R 2 =0.825, Relative error =6.49%). The damage patterns were similar to those observed during the failure during sideway fall experimental simulation. Finally, a comparative study based on 32 simulations, using a linear and nonlinear mesh has led to the conclusion that the results are improved when a nonlinear mesh is used. In summary, the numerical quasi-brittle model presented in this work showed its efficiency to find the experimental values during the simulation of the side fall.