Authors: Ian A F Stokes Jeffrey P Laible Mack G GardnerMorse John J Costi James C Iatridis
Publish Date: 2010/08/14
Volume: 39, Issue: 1, Pages: 122-131
Abstract
Intervertebral disks support compressive forces because of their elastic stiffness as well as the fluid pressures resulting from poroelasticity and the osmotic swelling effects Analytical methods can quantify the relative contributions but only if correct material properties are used To identify appropriate tissue properties an experimental study and finite element analytical simulation of poroelastic and osmotic behavior of intervertebral disks were combined to refine published values of disk and endplate properties to optimize model fit to experimental data Experimentally nine human intervertebral disks with adjacent hemivertebrae were immersed sequentially in saline baths having concentrations of 0015 015 and 15 M and the loss of compressive force at constant height force relaxation was recorded over several hours after equilibration to a 300N compressive force Amplitude and time constant terms in exponential force–time curvefits for experimental and finite element analytical simulations were compared These experiments and finite element analyses provided data dependent on poroelastic and osmotic properties of the disk tissues The sensitivities of the model to alterations in tissue material properties were used to obtain refined values of five key material parameters The relaxation of the force in the three bath concentrations was exponential in form expressed as mean compressive force loss of 487 550 and 140 N respectively with time constants of 173 278 and 340 h This behavior was analytically well represented by a model having poroelastic and osmotic tissue properties with published tissue properties adjusted by multiplying factors between 055 and 26 Force relaxation and time constants from the analytical simulations were most sensitive to values of fixed charge density and endplate porosity
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