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Bone fracture

When the cracks begin to show

Nature Materials volume 7, pages 610–612 (2008)Cite this article

The propagation of submillimetre cracks reveals how the numerous internal structural dimensions in bone lead to a toughness that varies with orientation and scale.

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Figure 1: Hierarchical structure of a human femur bone; various types of interfaces separate these building blocks on the different size scales, from cement lines between osteons to a thin organic matrix between mineralized collagen fibrils.
Figure 2: High-resolution scanning electron micrograph of a crack crossing an osteon and deflected by bone lamellae to form a zigzag path (from ref. 8, online supplementary information).

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  1. Peter Fratzl is in the Biomaterials Department, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, 14424 Potsdam, Germany. fratzl@mpikg.mpg.de,

    Peter Fratzl

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  1. Peter Fratzl
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Fratzl, P. When the cracks begin to show. Nature Mater 7, 610–612 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2240

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