Theoretical and Experimental Studies of the Bone Damage Detection by the Ultrasonic Method.

The bones elastic characterization using the nondestructive technique based on the propagation of the ultrasonic waves well studied in this paper. The elastic properties of materials play a fundamental role in the scientific and medical domains; their measurements give important information on the mechanical properties of these materials. In addition, the ability to measure the elastic properties of bones quickly and accurately can help make sure its structure quality over the life cycle and control its damage throughout the lifetime. This paper mainly concerns the control of osteoporosis. In order to treat this phenomenon, we must first make the diagnosis. This work is important by the fact that it is a characterization (essentially mechanical) of the osteoporosis bones and that it is imperative that the sounding be of the nondestructive type, especially if the examination is be repeated often. First, the work of this study concerns develop new methods for the nondestructive evaluation of mechanical alterations of bone tissue to osteoporosis. In our study, we found the link between the bone elastic properties variation and its porosity, saturation fluid, pores shape, pore radius and trabecular alignment. The technique used in this study has based on measure the ultrasound and elastic parameters as celebrate the porosity. This requires develop of theoretical models to study, the ultrasonic waves propagate in porous bones (Biot model). These criterions have identified experimentally in bovine trabecular bones. The results obtained show that the proposed method is very effective in characterizing the osteoporosis effect on the bones elastic properties, for acoustic characterization purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]