Cycle-dependent and time-dependent bone fracture with repeated loading.

Fatigue tests of human cortical bone (up to 1.74 X 10(6) cycles) were conducted under tension-compression (T-C) and zero-tension (O-T) modes with a 2Hz, stress controlled, sinusoidal loading history. Tensile creep-fracture tests at constant stress levels were also performed. The relationship between the initial cyclic strain range and cycles to failure with the T-C specimens were consistent with that derived previously in low-cycle fatigue under strain control. Using a time-dependent failure model, the creep-fracture data was found to be consistent with previous studies of the influence of strain rate on the monotonic tensile strength of bone. The model also predicted quite well the time to failure for the O-T fatigue specimens, suggesting that creep damage plays an important role in O-T fatigue specimens.