Meeting Abstract

78.4  Sunday, Jan. 6  Replicating failure of vertebrae and faces – a role for rapid prototyping SUMMERS, A.P.*; PORTER, M.E.; NAGLE, L.; CARRIER, D.R.; UC Irvine; UC Irvine; Tufts Univeristy; University of Utah asummers@uci.edu

We have used a rapid prototyping system to model failure mechanics of complex biological structures with high repeatability and fidelity to the natural structure�s failure morphology. The shark vertebrae have a distinctive and unexpected pattern of strength to failure among different species and the failure mode is tightly correlated with the shape of the mineralized portion of the vertebra. Using a solid modeling program we generated canonical models of shark vertebrae that captured some of the structural complexity. Testing these models to failure duplicated the relative magnitude of failure strength and showed similar fracture patterns to the actual vertebrae. A more complex system with good experimental data on over load failure is the human face. The Le Fort series of facial fractures are distinctive and correlated with increasing trauma. Using CT scans of human skulls we produced models that we then subjected to a traumatic event. The fracture patterns we found duplicated those seen in vivo and we also showed an increase in Le Fort severity with increasing force. The advantages of rapid prototyping over other methods of failure analysis (FEA and in vivo techniques) include speed, cost and repeatability.