Ultrasonic wave propagation in cancellous and cortical bone: prediction of some experimental results by Biot's theory.

Pulse transmission ultrasound was used to determine the longitudinal wave speed along the direction of trabecular alignment in 32 water-saturated anisotropic tibial bovine cancellous bone samples and in one cortical bone sample also from the bovine tibia. These results are compared to published ultrasound wave-speed data obtained from bovine femoral specimens. Nonlinear regression was used to fit Biot's theory to the data. The correlation coefficient for regression analysis between the experimental ultrasound velocities and the velocities predicted by Biot's theory was r = 0.78.