A thermodynamically consistent model of bone rotary remodeling: a 2D study

Bone remodeling characterizes the lifelong turnover and adaptation of bone tissue to its mechanical and biochemical environment. This phenomenon is of major importance, as it governs healing as well as osseointegration around implants (Haiat et al. 2014). Several scales and physics are involved in bone remodeling. Indeed, changes of the mechanical environment of bone at the organ scale lead to apposition and resorption of bone material at the microstructural scale which, in turn, result in an evolution of the mechanical properties of bone tissue, at the tissue scale. Moreover, biochemical stimuli can also trigger bone remodeling. In this work, we present a thermodynamically consistent framework for describing the evolution of bone elastic properties at the tissue scale. Such an approach allows to consider not only mechanics, but also phenomena related to biological activity. In particular, we focus on the stress driven rotation of the principal axes of the elastic tensor of bone. Rotation of bone material axes describes, at the tissue scale, the reorientation of bone microstructure induced by the macroscopic loading.