Design of fracture fixation plate for necessary and sufficient bone stress shielding

The objective of treating the fractured bone is to achieve painless functioning of the bone and undisturbed healing at the fracture. Internal fixation by stiff bone-plate is one of the standard methods to achieve these objectives. Recently, there is considerable interest in the usage of compliant plates to enhance bone healing with reduced stress shielding. Herein, first an analytical solution is developed to determine screw forces in the bone-plate assembly that conforms the plate and the bone under bending load. Based on the analytical calculations, an optimal fixator plate selection criterion for necessary and sufficient stress shielding is proposed. Second, effectiveness of employing a non-homogeneous stiffness graded (SG) plate rather than a homogeneous stainless steel (SS) plate for stress shielding is investigated using a finite element method. It is found that stress shielding on bone by SG plate is less compared to SS plate.