On the assessment of brittle–elastic cortical bone fracture in the distal radius

The primary objective of this work is to outline a simple methodology for the evaluation of the risk of cortical bone fracture in the distal radius in the event of a fall from standing height onto an outstretched hand. The approach involves conducting an elastic finite element (FE) analysis wherein the cortical bone is considered to be a transversely-isotropic material and, subsequently, verifying the admissibility of the stress field. The latter is based on a proposed macroscopic fracture criterion, which takes into account the anisotropic nature of the cortical tissue. The methodology is illustrated by a numerical example, which involves FE simulation of an experimental test designed to produce a Colles’ fracture of the radius.