Characterization and micromechanical modeling of the human cranial bone elastic properties

•Characterization of the human cranial bone mechanical behavior under quasi-static loading.•We perform an experimental measurement of structural anisotropy by microtomography technique.•Formulation of a micromechanics based elastic model for cranial bone.•Simulation of three-points bending test of a frontal cranial bone specimen.•The anisotropic micromechanical model provides good agreement with obtained experimental data.

This paper is devoted to the experimental characterization and micromechanical modeling of the elastic behavior of the human cranial bone. Three points bending tests on the frontal, parietal and temporal bone specimens have been performed to determine their mechanical characteristics under quasi-static loading. It is shown that Young's modulus and the bending stiffness are significantly influenced by the bone morphology and orientation. The anisotropic bone elastic properties have been then estimated by means of the Mori–Tanaka homogenization scheme coupled to experimental measurements of structural anisotropy by microtomography techniques. The obtained micromechanical model has been implemented as an UMAT routine within the explicit dynamics code LS-DYNA© and applied successfully for the estimation of the mechanical properties of the human cranial frontal bone. The obtained numerical results show an overall good agreement when compared to the experimental data.