Determining the poroelastic properties of osteons is critical to better understand the role of fluid flow in the nutrition, mechanotransduction, remodeling, homeostasis and loss of bone. The permeability of single osteons is among the key properties that may influence these phenomena. The measurement of permeability of a single osteon remains one of the most demanding tasks in bone mechanics to be developed. Two associated challenges are the size of the osteon and the absence of appropriate tools and methods to perform such measurement. In this communication, we present the development of a new procedure to isolate osteons, the design of a mechanism for loading an osteon and the comparison of the stress relaxation test in unconfined compression experiment with the analytical results for a compressible transverse isotropy model that we previously reported in Gailani and Cowin [1]. These experimentally determined values of permeability and mechanical properties have shown reasonable agreement with the previously reported experimentally and theoretically estimated values.
Effects of reproduction on sexual dimorphisms in rat bone mechanics
