Biomechanics of bones on various length scales

Bone are characterized by a hierarchical internal structure starting from the distinction between trabecular and cortical bone going over the osteonal structure of cortical bone down to the basic composite material with a soft collagenous matrix and a mineralized phase. Furthermore, bones have to be understood as organisms which adapt themselves to the mechanical demand. Phenomenological approaches for computations of stress adaptive bone remodeling based on a continuums description have been discussed intensively in literature. Goal of this presentation is a more detailed strategy for the explanation of the biomechanical interaction in more detail. A strain driven bone remodeling theory is presented, where three characteristic length scales including models for the bone cells are considered. A computational method for a closed loop biomechanical control circuit of bone remodeling is presented. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)