Compressive impact tests were performed on human long bone with the aim of accumulating information about the wave propagation characteristic of bone for clinical use and to increase nur understanding of osseous tissue. Dynamic tests on intact bone were carried out by impacting one end of dissected bone speciraens and recording the stress wave pulses by means of strain gages and a magnetic velociconeter that was constructed for this study using skeletal traction pins. After the initial set of studies were completed, serial cuts were made into the bone cortex at increasing depths as an attempt to model healing bone fracture. The above wave propagation studies were then repeated to measure the transmission coefficient through the fracture and any change in wave character due to the fracture.

In conjunction with this, human long bone was mathematically modeled as a poroelastic hollow cylinder. A computer simulation was devised to provide numerical results from the theory and an attempt was made to correlate the experimental findings with the model's predictions for various porosities.