Numerical modelling of impact fracture of cortical bone tissue using x-fem

A cortical bone tissue is susceptible to fracture that can be caused by events, such as traumatic falls, sports injuries and traffic accidents. A proper treatment of bones and prevention of their fracture can be supported by in-depth understanding of deformation and fracture behaviourof this tissue in such dynamic events.
Parameters such as damage initiationunder impact, damage progression and impact strength can help toachieve this goal. In this paper, Extended Finite-Element Method (XFEM)implemented into the commercial finite-element software Abaqusis used to simulate the actual crack initiation and growth in a cantilever beam of cortical bone exposed to quasi-static and impact loading using the Izod loading scheme. Izod tests were performed on notched bone
specimens of bovine femur to measure its impact strength and to validate
simulations. The simulation results show a good agreement with the
experimental data.