Analysis of near cortex versus both cortex screw fixation in bone fracture surgery – a finite element study

Abstract

Bone fractures could happen due to high impact force or stress, or a result of certain medical conditions that weakens the bones, such as osteoporosis. Locking compression plate (LCP) is commonly used for bone fracture fixation. The objective of this project is to analyse the mechanical behaviour of over-drilled near cortex versus both cortex screw fixation in bone fracture surgery and correlate with finite element analysis (FEA). The FE model can be used for further analysis if the model is successful validated. FEA is a cost effective method for analysing structures without the need of conducting many actual experiments. The experiments used in this report were carried out by previous final year project students. The FE model of the LCP-bone construct with both cortex fixation for axial load was validated in this study. However, further work is still required for four-point bending axial load with trapezoid and figure-of-8 near cortex configuration, etc, as significant deviation were still observed during the FEA.