Use of compact sandwich specimen to determine the critical strain energy release rate of bone.

The current methods to measure bone fracture toughness were initially developed for engineering materials and use specimen configurations that demand large samples. However, in many cases it is hard if not impossible to obtain such specimens from limited bone stock. Therefore, a new compact sandwich (CS) test method was formulated to measure the critical strain energy release rate (a measure of fracture toughness) of bone requiring only small samples. This technique may be used to assess bone fracture toughness and subsequently the bone quality.