Accuracy of beam theory for estimating bone tissue modulus and yield stress from 3-point bending tests on rat femora.

Mechanical analysis of animal long bones often makes use of beam theory to estimate tissue properties from bending tests. An earlier study (van Lenthe et al., 2008) found that beam theory leads to a considerable underestimation of the Young's modulus of mice femora.

Micro-Finite Element analysis will overestimate the compressive stiffness of fractured cancellous bone.

Recently, micro-Finite Element (micro-FE) analysis based on High Resolution peripheral Quantitative CT (HRpQCT) images was introduced to quantify the state of fracture healing (de Jong et al., 2014). That study suggested that the direct post-fracture stiffness may be overestimated by micro-FE.