An investigation of tensile strength of Ti6Al4V titanium screw inside femur bone using finite element and experimental tests

Abstract

The geometric optimization of orthopedic screws can considerably increase their orthopedic efficiency. Due to the high geometric parameters of orthopedic screws, a finite element simulation is an effective tool for analyzing and forecasting the effect of the parameters on the load-bearing capacity of different types of screws and bones. Thus, in the present study, the tensile strength of a typical cortical titanium screw was investigated by the finite element method, and experimental tests confirmed the obtained results. The behavior of the screw in the tensile test was discussed in terms of stress, force, and displacement. The maximum force results show a 14% difference between simulation and experimental works in tensile type loading. Moreover, it was suggested that the trend of force curves in both the experimental test and numerical simulation shows high similarity, and FEM predicts the process with acceptable accuracy. Furthermore, it was concluded that the stress values are higher while moving toward the top surface of the bone.