Computational Simulation of a Femoral Nail Fracture

Every year in the United States roughly 300,000 people over the age of 65 suffer from a hip fracture. Ninety five percent of which are the result from a fall. The resulting hip fracture can be classified into several categories of fracture. Depending on the damage the patient could be implanted with a femoral nail device to assist in their recovery. These devices can, however, have complications during recovery. In some cases, these nails can have a failure rate as high as 10%. When failure occurs, extensive investigations are needed to determine the causes of failure. These investigations involve physical examination, testing for material and chemical properties, and numerical computation with computer simulations. The results from this investigation show that the nail investigated may have accrued damage from the implantation process. There is evidence of internal crack propagation leading to device failure. Simulations performed indicate that if the nail was operating in a femur with a subtrochanteric fracture the internal forces may have been 50% higher than that of a normal femur, significantly more than any fracture type.