Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

Chapter Five
Physics of the skeleton
 Because of the importance of bone to the proper functioning of the
body, a number of medical specialists are concerned with problems of bone.
- Dentistry and orthopedic surgery.
- Rheumatologists, who specialize in problems of rheumatism and
arthritis.
- Radiologists, who base many diagnostic decisions on x-ray images of
bony structures.

 Functions of bones:-

1- Support: for example: legs. The body's muscles are attached to the
bones through tendons and ligaments; the system of bones plus muscles supports
the body.

2- Locomotion: for example: bone joint (hinges, articulations) permit

movement of one bone with respect to another.

3- Protection: for example: 1-skull, which protects the brain and

important sensory organs eyes and ears. 2- Ribs form a protective cage for the
heart and lungs.

4- Storage of chemicals: the bones act as a chemical bank for storing

elements for future use by the body, for example: a minimum level of calcium is
needed in the blood.

5- Nourishment: for example: teeth are specialized bones serve in

providing nourishment for the body, cut food (incisors), tear it (canines), grind it
(molars).

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

6- Sound transmission: for example: Ossicles in the middle ear (malleus,
incus, and stapes), the smallest bones of the body. These three small bones
converting sound vibrations in air to sound vibrations in the fluid of the cochlea.

 What is the bone?

- The bone is a living tissue which has blood supply as well as nerves
with cells that distributed through it; these cells are called ''osteocytes'', that
maintains the bone in a healthy condition. Cells make up about 2% of the
volume of bone. If these cells die (due to poor blood supply), the bone dies and
it loses some of its strength.

- Since the bone is a living tissue, it undergoes a change through the life.
A continuous process of destroying an old bone and building new bone, called
''bone remodeling''.

- ''Bone remodeling'' is performed by specialized bone cells osteoclasts

destroy the bone, and osteoblasts build it.

- We have the equivalent of a new skeleton about every seven years;

each day the osteoclasts destroy bone containing about 0.5g of calcium, and the
osteoblasts build new bone using about the same amount of calcium.

 What are the bone compositions?

Composition of compact bone

Element % of element in the bone

H 3.4

C 15.5

N 4.0

O 44.0

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

Mg 0.2

P 10.2

S 0.3

Ca 22.2

Miscellane 0.2
ous

 Note the large percentage of calcium (Ca) in bone. Since calcium has
a much heavier nucleus than most elements of the body, it absorbs x-rays much
better than the surrounding soft tissue.

 Bone consists of two quite different materials plus water:

- Collagen: the major organic fraction, which is about 40% of the weight
of solid bones and 60% of its volume.

- Bone minerals: so called ''inorganic'' component of bone, which is

about 60% of the weight of the bones and 40% of its volume.

- A bone: is composed of small hard bone mineral crystals attached to a

soft flexible collagen matrix. This combination provides a material that is as
strong as granite in compression and 25 times stronger than granite under
tension.

 If you sort all of the approximately 200 bones of the body into various
piles according to their shapes, you might come up with five piles:-

1- Small flat bones: plate like bones such as the shoulder

2- Long hollow bones: such as the bones of the arms, legs, and fingers.
3- Cylindrical bones: such as the vertebrae.
4- Irregular bones: such the bones of wrist and ankle.
5- The ribs: Those do not belong in any of the other types of bone.
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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

 If you were cut some of the bones apart you would find that they are
composed
Of one or combination of two different types of bones:
1- Solid or compact bone.
2- Spongy or cancellous or trabecular bone.

- Trabecular bone is predominantly found in the ends of the long bones.

While most of the compact bone is in the central shaft.

- What the
advantage of trabecular bone over compact bone?

1- A bone is subjected primarily to compressive forces, such as at the ends

of the bones and in the spine, trabecular bone gives the strength necessary with
less material than compact bone.

2- The trabeculae are relatively flexible; trabecular bone can absorb more
energy when large forces are involved such as walking, running, and jumping.

 When the force may come from any direction, a hollow cylinder is used
to get the maximum strength with a minimum amount of material. It is almost as
strong as solid cylinder of the same diameter. Since the forces on the femur may
come from any direction. The hollow cylinder structure of the bone is well
suited for support.

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

- Bone mass: refers to the weight of the skeleton.

- Bone density: refers to the ratio of weight to the volume or area of the
bones.

- The density of compact bone is constant throughout life about 1.9

3
g/cm (1.9 times as dense as water). In old age the bone density is still about 1.9
g/cm3, it is reduced in strength because it is thinner, not because it is less dense.

Hooke̕ s law

- All materials change in length when placed under tension or

compression. When a sample of fresh bone is placed in a special instrument for
measuring the elongation under tension. The strain (∆L/L) increases linearly at
first, indicating that it is proportional to the stress (F/A) - Hook̓ s law.
- The ratio of the force to the displacement is a constant- Hooke’s Law
Fx F  kx
- As the force increases the length increases more rapidly, and the bone
breaks at a tensile stress of about 120 N/mm2, and the bone breaks at a
compressive stress of about 170 N/mm2, young's modulus of elasticity of about
179x102 N/mm2.

- The ratio of stress to strain in the initial linear portion is Young

modulus Y. that is,

𝐋𝐅
Y=
𝐀∆𝐋
 Stress: is the ratio of the force to the cross sectional area. For
compression or tension, the normal stress 
- Measures pressure
- SI unit pascal
2 2
- Pa = N / m = kg / m s
F

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A
Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

 Tensile stress - stress that tends to stretch or lengthen the material.

 Compressive stress - stress that tends to compress or shorten the

material.

 Bone strength

Compressio Strongest
n
Tension Weak
Shear Weakest

 Strain: deformation is relative to the size of an object.

- The displacement compared to the length is the strain ε.

-Measures a fractional change

-Unit less quantity

x

L
 The bones do not normally break due to compression and tension; they
usually break due to shear. A shear fracture often results in a spiral break in
which the bone is apt to puncture the skin. This type of fracture (compound) is
more apt to become infected than a fracture in which the bone is not exposed
(simple).

 Example 1

Assume a leg has a 1.2m shaft of bone with average cross sectional area of 3
cm². What is the amount of shortening when all of the body weight of 700N is
supported on his leg? Y= 1.8x 10¹º N/m²

𝐋𝐅 (𝟏.𝟐𝐦)(𝟕×𝟏𝟎𝟐 𝑵)
∆𝐋 = = = 1.5×10-4m = 0.15mm
𝐀𝐘 (𝟑×𝟏𝟎−𝟒 𝐦𝟐 )(𝟏.𝟖×𝟏𝟎𝟏𝟎 𝑵/𝐦𝟐 )

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

 Example 2

Using the information from figure:

a- Calculate the maximum tension a bone with a cross sectional area of 4 cm²
could withstand just prior to fracture?
b- Determine how much a bone 35 cm long would elongate under this
maximum tension.
C- Calculate the stress on this bone if a tension force of 104N were applied to
it. How much would this bone lengthen?

 Bone joints
Joint are placed in the body, where two bones come together, the joints make
most of the body movement possible. The main components of joint are shown
in figure

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

Figure: The main components of a joint.

Synovial membrane encases the joint and retains the lubricating synovial
fluid. Synovial fluid have two main functions: to aid in the nutrition of articular
cartilage by acting as a transport medium for nutritional substances, such as
glucose, and to aid in the mechanical function of joints by lubrication of the
articulating surfaces.

Types of joint:

1-ball and socket: allows circular motion. (Hip and shoulder)

2- Hinging joint: allows back and forth movement. (Knee and elbow)

3- Pivot joint: allows back and forth turning motion. (Vertebrae of neck)

4- Gliding joints: allow sliding and twisting movement. (Bones of wrist and
ankle)

5- Fixed joints: which don’t allow movement. (Bones of the skull)

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

 Lubrication of bone joints

Lubricating properties of a fluid depend on its viscosity; thin oil is less
viscous and a better lubricant than thick oil. The viscosity of synovial fluid
decreases under the large shear stresses found in the joint.

Viscosity is a measure of the resistance of a fluid which is being deformed by

either shear stress or tensile stress, or a liquid's resistance to flowing is called its
viscosity.

SI symbol: μ, η

SI unit: pascal second (Pas) = kg/(s·m)

1 Pas=10 poise

There are two major diseases that affect the joints:-

- 1- Rheumatoid arthritis, which results in overproduction of synovial

fluid in the joint and causes swollen joints, and 2- osteoarthrosis, a disease of the
joint itself.

- To measure the coefficient of friction of bone joints, a normal hip

joint from a fresh cadaver was mounted upside down with heavy weights
pressing the head of the femur into its socket. The weight on the joint could be
varied to study the effects of different loads. The whole unit acted like a
pendulum with the joint serving as the pivot. From the rate of decrease of the
amplitude with time, the coefficient of friction was calculated. For all healthy
joints the coefficient of friction to be less than 0.001. When the synovial fluid
was removed, coefficient of friction increased.

 Measurement of bone minerals in the body

- Bone is one of the most difficult organs to study, because the bones are
relatively inaccessible. Several physical systems for studying the bones in vivo.
- Osteoporosis was difficult to detect until a patient appeared with a
broken hip or a crushed vertebra.

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

- The strength of bone depends to a large extent on the mass of bone

minerals present, and the most striking features in osteoporosis is the lower than
normal bone minerals mass. Since bone minerals mass decrease very slowly 1 to
2% per year, a very precise technique was needed to show changes.

- The idea of using an x –ray image to measure the amount of bone

minerals present is an old one. The major problems of using an ordinary x-ray
are:

i. The usual x-ray beam has much different energy, and the absorption of
x-ray by calcium varies rapidly with energy in this range of energies.
ii. The relatively large beam contains much scattered radiation when it
reaches the film.
iii. The film is poor detector for the amount and the energy of the x-rays.

Figure: conventional x-ray

- An improved technique based on the same physical principles, this

technique called photon absorptiometry. The three problems with the x-ray
technique were largely eliminated by using:

1- Monoenergitic x-ray or gamma ray source.

2- A narrow beam to minimize scatter.

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

3- A scintillation detector that detects all photons and permits them to be
sorted and counted individually.

Figure: the basic components in photon absorptiometry.

- The determination of the bone mineral mass by immersing the bone to

be measured in a uniform thickness of soft tissue e.g. water. Water closely
imitates the x-ray absorption of soft biological tissue in general.

- The intensity before the beam enters the bone is called I°. The bone
mineral mass (BM) at any point in the beam is proportional to log (I°/I) and is
given by BM (g/cm2) =k (I°/I), where k is a constant.

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Uruk University Medical Physics

College of Dentistry Assist lect. Zahraa Abass

Figure: a graph of the transmitted intensity of the beam as it traverses the bone during
photon absorptiometry. The intensity is plotted on a logarithmic scale. The shaded area is
proportional to the bone mineral mass per unit length.

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