The topic I’d really liked on passed MSC conference was about simulation of loads in human bones. The issue here is relating to different properties of natural materials in distinguished directions and in various parts of the item. For example, tooth consist of extremely strong enamel and tough dentine. First is good for routine chewing activity due to its high strength on compression. But the down side is fragility. In case if sudden loads, like punch in the head or hot tea after ice cream, cracks are appeared it enamel and dentine helps tooth to stop crack development. So tooth is made of wonderful composite material.
But how to analyze loads in it? The most common approach is to average property and assume strength for any part of structure. At some extend it’s fine but if you need to design artificial tooth average strength is as helpful as average temperature among clinic patients. Some have a feather and elevated temperature, and others are dead and they are as hot an air around them.
To solve this problem group of engineers created the program dealing with X-Ray images of bones. They assumed that strength of material is proportional to density. And find density distribution is easy, because higher density looks brighter in X-Rays. As a result they can analyze bones behavior more accurately to help healthcare providers design better prothesis and perform teeth restoration with higher quality.
I think there are still some room for improvement of described method due to non-linear relationship between density and strength. But nonetheless existing solution is good enough to show correlation with tests (better not to think where they took so much bones for theory validaton).