Biomechanical response of the human clavicle subjected to dynamic bending.

The purpose of this study was to determine the biomechanical response of human clavicles when subjected to dynamic three-point bending. A total of 10 human cadaver clavicles were tested at an anatomical impact of 0 degrees relative to the transverse plane. Each clavicle was instrumented with a strain gage located under the impactor. Two load cells were used to capture the impactor and reaction loads. The average failure load was 732 +/- 175 N and the average failure moment was 28.3 +/- 7.8 m. The average failure strain was 19738 +/- 2927 microstrain. Using the cross-sectional geometry properties of each bone obtained from CT scans and the strain gage data, the average elastic modulus was 20.8 +/- 5.7 GPa for the linear region of the loading phase. The data presented in this paper is useful to understand clavicle fractures as well as to develop advanced human computational models.