A new approach to determine the accuracy of morphology-elasticity relationships in continuum FE analyses of human proximal femur

Continuum models that implemented isotropic and orthotropic material definitions were generated for two proximal femurs for which micro-FE results were available as well, one representing a healthy and the other an osteoporotic femur. It was found that the continuum FE stress distributions calculated for the healthy femur compared well to the homogenized results of the micro-FE although slightly better for the orthotropic model (r=0.83) than for the isotropic model (r=0.79). For the osteoporotic bone also, the orthotropic model did better (r=0.83) than the isotropic model (r=0.77). We propose that this approach will enable a more relevant and accurate validation of different material models than experimental methods used so far.