On prediction of the compressive strength and failure patterns of human vertebrae using a quasi-brittle continuum damage finite element model.

Purpose: Damage of bone structures is mainly conditioned by bone quality related to the bone strength. The purpose of this work was to present a simple and reliable numerical treatment of a quasi-brittle damage constitutive model coupled with two different elastic modulus and to compare the numerical results with the experimental ones.

Methods: To achieve this goal, a QCT based finite element model was developed within the framework of CDM (Continuum Damage Mechanics) and implemented in the FE code (ABAQUS).