Experimental determination of whole long bone sectional properties.

A strain gage based experimental method is presented which provides an alternative to use of area sectional properties for obtaining the cross sectional centroids, flexural rigidities and axial stiffness of whole bone specimens. While area sectional property computations require detailed records on the geometry of cross sections, the experimental method presented here requires only gage locations plus the applied loads and recorded strains. Both techniques are used to analyze the midshaft sectional properties of canine radii. The results demonstrate the advantage of the experimental method for the analysis of heterogeneous cross sections with an unknown distribution of bone elastic modulus. By applying the experimental and area methods together, effective elastic modulus values for the sections were obtained.