Calcif Tissue Int (2001) 69:373–378
DOI: 10.1007/s00223-001-1006-1
Shear Strength and Fatigue Properties of Human Cortical Bone
Determined from Pure Shear Tests
C. H. Turner,1 T. Wang,1 D. B. Burr2
1
Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Mechanical Engineering, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis,
Indianapolis, Indiana 46202, USA
2
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Indiana, 46202, USA
Received: 16 January 2001 / Accepted: 11 July 2001 / Online publication: 3 December 2001
Abstract. Shear properties of bone have been inferred from
torsion tests. However, torsion often causes spiral fracture
planes that correspond to tensile rather than shear failure.
We measured the shear properties of human cortical bone in
both longitudinal and transverse directions using pure shear
tests. Shearing applied transverse to the bone long axis
caused fracture along a 45° plane that coincided with maxi-
mum tension. This fracture pattern is similar to spiral frac-
tures caused by torsion. Shear strength along the bone axis
was 51.6 MPa or about 35% less than that determined using
torsion tests. Fatigue tests of human cortical bone in pure
shear were conducted. The results agreed well with previous
measurements of cortical bone fatigue life in tension and
compression, when normalized to strength. Using tibial
shear strain magnitudes measured previously for human
volunteers, we estimated the fatigue life of cortical bone for
different activities, and speculate that shear fatigue failure is
a probable cause of tibial stress fractures resulting from
impact loading.
Key words: Torsion — Human cortical bone — Shear fa-
tigue failure
During normal activities, bone tissue is subjected to tensile,
compressive, and shear stresses. Usually shear stress mag-
nitudes are relatively small, but can become substantial in
long bones subjected to torsion. Severe torsion can result in
long bone fracture. Fracture surfaces produced by torsional
loads are helical [1], creating a spiral fracture. Torsional
loading creates both transverse and longitudinal shear
stresses in the bone as well as tensile and compressive
stresses 45° from the shear direction (Fig. 1a). Bone will fail
along the plane in which it is weakest. Often this fracture
plane coincides with the maximum tensile stresses, which in
the case of torsional loading, falls along a helical plane 45°
from the long axis (the maximum compressive stress runs
along a perpendicular helical plane, see Fig. 1b), suggesting
that torsion causes bone to fail in tension rather than shear.
When bone is subjected to cyclical loading, microdam-
Correspondence to: C. H. Turner
© 2001 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
age develops within the bone tissue and with time can ac-
cumulate. The combination of the bone weakening effects
of microdamage accumulation and bone resorption that is
triggered by microdamage can lead to stress fracture [2].
Microdamage may be caused by either tensile, compressive,
or shear stresses. Since cortical bone is weak in shear [3],
particularly in the longitudinal plane, shear fatigue of bone
may be a key factor in stress fracture pathogenesis. Yet
there are no data available to test this possibility since the
fatigue properties of cortical bone in shear fatigue have not
been measured.
In previous studies, shear strength has been inferred
from torsion tests applied to specimens of cortical bone. As
noted above, torsion often causes tensile failure in bone,
rather than shear. An alternative to the torsion test is pure
shear testing following protocols designed for composite
material testing. Additionally, pure shear testing can be used
to determine the response of cortical bone to cyclic fatigue
loading in shear, a property of bone that has not been stud-
ied.
We measured shear strength of human cortical bone in
the longitudinal and transverse planes using the Iosipescu
[4] and Arcan et al. [5] pure shear testing protocols. In
addition, we conducted fatigue tests in pure shear.
Methods
Bone Specimens
Cortical bone specimens were obtained from the midshafts of hu-
man femora from three males (63, 72, and 74 years old) and two
females (71 and 83 years old). These bones were stored at −20°C
until the time of testing.
Pure Shear Tests
Shearing tests were conducted using the Iosipescu [4] and Arcan et
al. [5] pure shear protocols (Fig. 2). Before the shear testing, we
conducted finite element analyses to confirm that the tests pro-
duced pure shear stress in the test specimens. All the analyses were
done using Sun SPARCstation (Sun Microsystems, Inc.). Patran
2.5 (PDA Engineering) was used to create geometry and mesh and
374
Fig. 1. (a) Torsional loading causes shear stress along and trans-
verse to the long axis of the bone (indicated by stripes). Tensile
stress is maximum in a plane +45° from the long axis and maxi-
mum compressive stress occurs at −45°. (b) Torsional loading
applied to a bone causes compressive stress (A) and tensile stress
(B) in perpendicular helical planes 45° from the long axis. This is
analogous to the effect of twisting a cardboard tube. If twisted in
the correct direction, the tube will come apart along the helical
seam, the result of tensile stresses created across the seam.
Abaqus 5.5 (Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen, Inc.) was used to ana-
lyze the models. The Arcan and Iosipescu tests were analyzed
using 8-node quadratic quadrilateral elements with 3574 and 1646
degrees of freedom, respectively. Bone was modeled as an isotro-
pic material with a Young’s modulus of 20 GPa and a Poisson’s
ratio of 0.3. Shear stress and principle stress angle were calculated
in the critical test region (shaded region in Fig. 2; this region
comprised 32 elements for the Arcan analysis and 20 elements for
the Iosipescu analysis).
Shear tests were performed on longitudinal test specimens, in
which shearing occurred transverse to the long axis (transverse
shear), or on transverse test specimens where shearing was parallel
to the long axis (longitudinal shear). The Iosipescu test configu-
ration was used for transverse shear tests, but size requirements
dictated that the Arcan configuration be used for longitudinal shear
tests because of the degree of radial curvature of the bone. For
transverse shear tests, 6–7 cm sections from the femoral mid-
diaphysis were cut into four quadrants. A milling machine (EMCO
Maximat Super 11, EMCO Maier Co, Columbus, OH) was used to
cut a rectangular piece (40 × 10 × 3 mm) from each quadrant, with
its long axis parallel to the femoral long axis. Two V-shaped
notches of 90° and 3 mm depth were cut using a milling machine
with a custom-made end mill cutter with a 0.5 mm tip radius (Fig.
3). The specimens (n ⳱ 11) were tested at room temperature (22
± 2 °C). The test apparatus was custom-made according to the
specifications of Iosipescu et al. [4]. Specimens were loaded to
fracture in pure shear at a rate of 1 mm/sec using a servohydraulic
test system (MTS 810, MTS Systems Co., Eden Prairie, MN). A
plotter (HP 7090A, Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto) recorded the ul-
timate loads.
For longitudinal shear tests, a group of three to four specimens
were machined from each quadrant of the femoral cortex. These
specimens (n ⳱ 14) came from the same mid-diaphyseal sections
as were used for the transverse shear tests. From the diaphyseal
bone, a rectangular piece was machined to 10 mm × 10 mm × 3
mm, 90° notches 2.5 mm in depth were cut using the end mill
cutter described above (Fig. 3), and the test region of the specimen
was milled to a 1.5 mm thickness. Each specimen was mounted
into an aluminum grip and loaded as specified by Arcan et al. [5].
C. H. Turner et al.: Shear Strength of Cortical Bone
Fig. 2. (a) Iosipescu and (b) Arcan test methods for producing
pure shear stresses in composite materials. The shaded region in
(a) is under pure shear when a force F is applied. Iosipescu speci-
mens are typically four times longer than they are wide with 90°
notches in the center and a specimen thickness of at least 2.5 mm.
For Arcan test specimens, the width of the test region is denoted h.
It is important that the notches have fillets otherwise stress con-
centrations can be created which will cause premature failure of
the test specimen. From Turner C H., Burr D B. Bone 14:595–608,
1993. Used with permission from Elsevier Science.
Testing was done at room temperature. Ultimate load was mea-
sured for each specimen.
For both the Arcan and Iosipescu tests, shear stress in the test
region was calculated as ␶ ⳱ F/ht. where F is the applied force, h
is the height of the critical section (Fig. 2), and t is the specimen
thickness.
Fatigue Tests
Five longitudinal shear specimens were made from each femur (for
a total of 25). One specimen from each femur was loaded to
fracture to determine the ultimate longitudinal shear stress. Then
the remaining four specimens were tested under cyclic load with
peak load levels that created shear stresses that were 60%, 70%,
80%, and 90% of the ultimate longitudinal shear stress. Tests were
performed using an apparatus according to the specification de-
scribed by Arcan et al. [5] Universal joints were used to prevent
bending and torsion on the specimen. A haversine load waveform
was applied to the specimen using the MTS servohydraulic testing
machine, with a frequency of 2 Hz. Specimens were kept wet by
dripping 37°C physiological saline over them throughout the tests.
Fatigue failure is defined as the complete fracture of the specimen.
Results
Finite element analyses confirmed that both the Arcan and
C. H. Turner et al.: Shear Strength of Cortical Bone 375

Fig. 4. Illustration of the fracture planes for transverse and longi-

tudinal shearing of cortical bone. The striped pattern shows the
direction of the ‘grain’ of the bone along the long axis. Shearing
aligned with the grain (longitudinal shear) caused a fracture plane
along the grain. Shearing across the grain (transverse shear) caused
a fracture plane 45° from the grain. This fracture plane corre-
sponded to the maximum tensile stress. Thus, transverse shearing
causes a tensile fracture rather than a shear fracture.

Fig. 3. Protocol for specimen preparation. A section was cut from

the femoral midshaft and divided into four quadrants. Each quad-
rant was machined into a flat bar approximately 10 mm wide and
3 mm thick. The flat bar was machined into an Iosipescu shear
specimen (shown on the left) for transverse shear tests by cutting
notches in the top of the bottom, or into four Arcan shear speci-
mens (shown on the right) by notching the sides.

Iosipescu devices achieved an excellent pure shear stress

state within the critical section. The principal angle was 45°
± 0.5° for the Arcan device and 45° ± 1.3° for the Iosipescu
device, demonstrating excellent agreement with theory (a
principal angle of 45° was expected). The equation ␶ ⳱ F/ht
underestimated the average nodal shear stress within the
critical section by < 4%. Shear stress was virtually uniform
across the 4 mm critical section for both the Iosipescu and
Arcan specimens.
The shear strength under longitudinal shear was 51.6 ±
1.9 MPa, which was significantly less than shear strength
under transverse shear, 65.3 ± 2.5 MPa (p < 0.001). For
transverse shearing, the fracture plane was always 45° from
the direction of loading, whereas longitudinal shear always
produced a fracture along the shear plane (Fig. 4). The
fracture plane caused by transverse shearing always coin-
cided with the maximum tensile stress, hence transverse
shearing caused failure due to tension not shear.
Of the 20 specimens prepared for fatigue testing, 16
were tested successfully. Four specimens were not used due
to either mistakes in specimen preparation or premature
shutdown of the testing machine during the fatigue test.
Results from shear fatigue tests are summarized as peak
stress vs cycles (S-N curve, Fig. 5) or peak strain vs cycles.
The data closely fit the equation:
␶failure = 55N−0.06 (1)
or
Fig. 5. S-N curve for fatigue of cortical bone in shear. Regression
of the data on a log-log scale yielded a good fit (r2 ⳱ 0.89, P <
0.00001).
␥failure = 8900N−0.06 (2)
where ␶failure is the longitudinal shear stress (in MPa), ␥failure
is the longitudinal shear strain (in microstrain), and N is the
number of loading cycles until failure. Peak shear strain was
calculated as peak stress divided by the shear modulus of
the femur in the longitudinal-circumferential plane (6.23
GPa [6]).
Discussion
We report the shear strength of human cortical bone in its
weakest plane (longitudinal) and the shear fatigue properties
of femoral bone. The longitudinal shear strength measured
in our study (51.6 MPa) was similar to that measured pre-
viously (50.4 MPa) for embalmed human femurs [7]. Table
1 shows the tensile, compressive, and shear strengths for
376
Table 1. Tensile, compressive, and shear strengths of human
femoral midshaft
Longitudinal Transverse
Tensile strength [8] 133.0 MPa 51.0 MPa
Compressive strength [8] 193.0 MPa 133.0 MPa
Shear strength (torsion) [8] 68.0 MPa
Shear strength [7] 50.4 MPa
Shear strength (current study) 51.6 MPa 65.3 MPaa
a
Transverse shear specimens failed in tesion rather than shear
human femoral bone as reported by Saha [7] and Reilly and
Burstein [8], compared to the shear strengths reported here.
The data compiled in Table 1 illustrate two things: (1) cor-
tical bone is weak in both tension and shear, and (2) the
longitudinal shear strength of cortical bone is substantially
lower than shear strength determined using torsion tests.
Cortical bone shear strength has been reported to be be-
tween 68 and 70 MPa based upon data from torsion tests [8,
9]. These values are about 35% higher than the longitudinal
shear strength reported here (but similar to transverse shear
strength).
The transverse shear test created a failure plane 45° from
the long axis, coincidental with the plane of maximum ten-
sion. This fracture pattern is analogous to the spiral fracture
resulting from torsion. The similarity of these results dem-
onstrates that the transverse pure shear test provides results
similar to the more widely accepted torsion test. As illus-
trated in Figure 1a, transverse shear loads cause shear
stresses in both the transverse and longitudinal directions.
Since longitudinal shear strength was substantially less than
transverse shear strength, it is difficult to understand why
the transverse shear specimens did not fail in the longitu-
dinal direction, i.e., along the grain of the bone. Had the
specimens failed in longitudinal shear, they would have
split down the long axis instead of failing at a 45° angle.
Clearly the bone tissue could have failed along either of its
weakest planes—longitudinal shear or tension—but failure
occurred in tension. Perhaps the constraints placed upon the
specimen by the Iosipescu test apparatus did not allow fail-
ure in longitudinal shear. Nevertheless, there are clinical
examples of longitudinal shear fractures. The most common
is the ‘boot top’ fracture resulting from a skiing accident.
This fracture typically results from the combination of tor-
sion and three-point bending at the boot top. Both torsion
and bending cause transverse shear loading to the tibia,
resulting in longitudinal shear stress. The fracture often in-
cludes a spiral fracture plane combined with longitudinal
fracture planes [10].
The fatigue properties of cortical bone in shear deter-
mined in this study were compared with previous studies
from the literature (Fig. 6). Table 2 lists the previous studies
used for this comparison. (This list includes only studies
that reported an S-N curve, allowing comparison with the
data in Fig. 5). Cortical bone exhibited better fatigue prop-
erties under rotating bending or reversed flexural loading
C. H. Turner et al.: Shear Strength of Cortical Bone
Fig. 6. S-N curve comparing fatigue of cortical bone in shear
(closed circles) with fatigue measured in tension, compression,
reversed loading, or bending. Open circles [14]; open squares [11];
open triangles [15]; open upside down triangles [12]; closed tri-
angles [17] (tension); closed upside down triangles [17] (compres-
sion); closed squares (large) [13]; closed squares (small) [16].
[11, 12, 14, 15] (open symbols in Fig. 6) than under tensile
[16] compressive [13, 17], or uniaxial tensile-compressive
loading [16] (closed symbols). This comparison may be
misleading, however, since bending and flexural tests were
conducted at high frequencies (30–125 Hz) and uniaxial
tests were conducted at lower frequencies (0.5–2 Hz). Caler
and Carter [18] have shown that there is a time-dependent
component for damage accumulation in cortical bone,
hence, fatigue testing of bone at higher frequencies could
inadvertently extend the fatigue life, in terms of cycles to
failure. Also, testing temperature has significant effects on
fatigue life of bone. Carter and Hayes [14] found that a
decrease from 45°C to 21°C tripled fatigue life of cortical
bone. This is significant since most of the previous studies
that used bending or flexural tests were conducted at room
temperature (20–22 °C) rather than body temperature (37
°C) [11, 12, 15]. The fatigue life for a given shear stress
magnitude was considerably less than fatigue life at similar
stress magnitudes, determined using uniaxial tension, com-
pression, or bending loading. However, as noted in Table 1,
cortical bone is much weaker in longitudinal shear than in
tension or compression. Consequently, we chose to further
compare the S-N curves after normalizing peak stress by
cortical bone strength in shear, tension, and compression.
We used the tensile and compressive fatigue data from Pat-
tin et al. [17] to compare with shear fatigue data, since
Pattin et al. used similar testing conditions (bone type, test
type, frequency), as in the current study. After normaliza-
tion, there were no significant differences between the shear
S-N curve and the tensile or compressive S-N curves (Fig.
7), suggesting that fatigue of cortical bone occurs at similar
rates in tension, compression, and shear.
The study results demonstrate that cortical bone is very
weak in shear and is subject to fatigue failure when repet-
itively loaded in shear. These findings may help explain the
C. H. Turner et al.: Shear Strength of Cortical Bone 377

Table 2. Previous fatigue studies used for comparison with shear fatigue data
Reference Bone type Test type Temperature Frequency (Hz)
King and Evans [11] Embalmed human Reversed flexural Room temperature 30
Swanson et al. [12] Human Rotating bending Room temperature 70
Gray and Korbacher [13] Bovine Uniaxial compression Room temperature 30
Carter et al. [14] Bovine Rotating bending 37°C 125
Lafferty and Raju [15] Bovine Rotating bending 21°C 30
Carter et al. [16] Human Uniaxial reversed 37°C 0.5–1.0
Pattin et al. [17] Human Uniaxial compression 37°C 2
Pattin et al. [17] Human Uniaxial tension 37°C 2
Current study Human Pure shear 37°Ca 2
a
37°C saline was dripped on the specimens during the test

true when it comes to stress fracture of the human tibia;

Fig. 7. S-N curves comparing fatigue properties after peak stress
were normalized by the ultimate strength (defined as the peak
stress value at one cycle to failure extrapolated from the S-N
curve). Shear fatigue data taken from the current study were nor-
malized by longitudinal shear strength (52 MPa). Tensile fatigue
data from Pattin et al. [17] were normalized by longitudinal tensile
strength (111 MPa). Compressive fatigue data from Pattin et al.
was normalized by longitudinal compressive strength (182 MPa).
Analysis of covariance (with load type as a main effect and (log)
cycles to failure as a covariate) showed that there were not sig-
nificant differences between the normalized shear fatigue S-N
curve (circles) and the normalized tensile S-N curve (triangles
[17]), or the normalized compressive S-N curve (upside down
triangles [17]) (P > 0.9).
high incidence of stress fractures during certain strenuous
exercises. Cortical bone strain has been measured in vivo in
a number of animal species and humans during various
exercises. Bone strains for dogs and horses while they run
show that the tibiae and radii are loaded primarily in bend-
ing, such that shear strains are fairly low [19]. These results
imply that stress fractures are mainly the result of large
tensile and compressive strains/stresses, rather than shear-
ing. Fatigue failure of the third metacarpal bone in thor-
oughbred racehorses is associated with peak compressive
strain magnitude in the bone during training [20]. Yet others
have argued that fatigue fracture may be the result of shear
strains, even if they are considerably less than tensile or
compressive strains, due to the weakness of cortical bone in
shear [21]. There is growing evidence that the latter may be
tibial strains have been measured in several human volun-
teers during a variety of activities [22–24]. Activities that
cause impact loading (e.g., running) cause higher tibial
strains than activities involving smooth movements (e.g.,
cycling). In activities that do not involve impact loading, the
predicted fatigue failure of the cortical bone exceeds the
human lifetime (108 cycles or about 100 years) (Table 3).
However, for impact activities like running, the predicted
fatigue life in shear can be as much as 3 orders of magnitude
shorter than in compression.
The current study was limited to bone specimens from
only a few elderly individuals. It is possible that bone
samples from younger individuals would have a longer fa-
tigue life under similar loading conditions. The results are
also limited to bone specimens from the femoral midshaft.
We chose this anatomical site because it was the site for
samples in most previous studies, thus allowing valid com-
parison of results. Of course cortical bone mechanical prop-
erties vary with anatomical site. Evans and Lebow [24]
found that the fatigue life of human tibial bone specimens
was greatest at the midshaft, but 37% less in the distal third
of the cortex and 67% less in the proximal third. The varia-
tion in fatigue life may be due to site-specific differences in
bone microstructure. The density and Young’s modulus of
femoral and tibial cortical bone are both less in distal and
proximal locations compared with the midshaft [25]. Carter
et al. [16] showed that fatigue life decreases with decreasing
Young’s modulus and/or increasing porosity. Hence, the
shear fatigue properties presented here are valid only for the
human femoral midshaft and might vary with proximodistal
location along the femur, or in other anatomical sites.
In conclusion, we found that the longitudinal shear
strength measured using pure shear testing was about 35%
less than that previously determined using torsion tests.
Thus, human cortical bone is considerably weaker in lon-
gitudinal shear compared with transverse shear. This study
is the first investigation of the fatigue behavior of human
cortical bone under pure shear loading. Based upon in vivo
bone strain measurements from human volunteers, we be-
lieve that shear stresses may play an important role in the
pathogenesis of stress fractures in the tibia.
378 C. H. Turner et al.: Shear Strength of Cortical Bone

Table 3. Measured tibial strains in human volunteers participating in different activities [22,
23]
Activity Peak strain Predicted time to failure
Comp. Tensile Shear Comp. Tensile Shear
8 8
Cycling [23] 291 271 628 >10 >10 >108
Walking [22] 544 437 871 >108 >108 >108
Jogging [22] 879 625 1444 >108 >108 >108
Running Sprint [22] 968 646 1583 >108 >108 >108
Zigzag running Uphill [23] 1226 743 1966 5.9 × 107 >108 >108
Running 17 km/h [23] 1675 1378 5027 5.4 × 106 >108 9.0 × 103
a
The number of loading cycles until failure were estimated based upon the current results
(shear) or the results from Pattin et al. [17] for tension or compression. Strains are in units of
microstrain The stress fatigue data from Pattin et al. [17] were converted to strains by dividing
by the Young’s modulus of human femoral bone (20 GPa [6])

Acknowledgments. This work was supported by USPHS Research
Grants P01-AG05793 and R01-AR43730 from the National Insti-
tute of Aging and the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskel-
etal and Skin Diseases.
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