Tensile forces in skeletal structures

Recent hypotheses about the mechanisms of adaptation of bone to impressed mechanical forces differ according to the extent to which tensile stresses are thought to be functionally important in bone. A pilot study of three anatomical regions by means of the photoelastic analogy suggests the possibility that net tension rarely exists in significantly large regions of bones during normal function. Thus the examination of two situations (opposite linear attachment of muscles to the lips of bony crests and opposite areal attachment of muscles to either side of thin bony plates) suggests that in rare cases where precise anatomical architecture is such that net tension may be present, then bone is not found; such regions consist of appropriate collagenous structures. In the third situation (opposite attachment of tendons to a sesamoid bone) where it would appear that net tension ought to exist, it is suggested that it is likely that it does not. Net tension probably occurs only in tendons running in tightly curved bony grooves: those very situations where sesamoid bones are not present.