Experimental observation of the skeletal adaptive repair mechanism and bionic topology optimization method

Abstract

Bone adaptive repair theory considers that the external load is the direct source of bone remodeling; bone achieves its maintenance by remodeling some microscopic damages due to external load during the process. This paper firstly observes CT data from the whole self-repairing process in bone defects in rabbit femur. Experimental result shows that during self-repairing process there exists an interaction relationship between spongy bone and enamel bone volume changes of bone defect, that is when volume of spongy bone increases, enamel bone decreases, and when volume of spongy bone decreases, enamel bone increases. Secondly according to this feature a bone remodeling model based on cross-type reaction-diffusion system influenced by mechanical stress is proposed. Finally, this model coupled with finite element method by using the element adding and removing process is used to simulate the self-repairing process and engineering optimization problems by considering the idea of bionic topology optimization. © 2014 Kaysar Rahman et al.