Elastic modulus of mechanical model for mineralized collagen fibrils

Bone is a biomaterial with excellent mechanical properties. Because of its hierarchical structure, bone combines the stiffness and toughness of its components properly. Mineralized collagen fibril is nanocomposite, which plays the foundational role in the hierarchical structure of bone. In this paper, we derive the effects of aspect ratio of mineral platelets and collagen distributed in the longitudinal and transverse direction between adjacent mineral platelets in different arrangements. The Results show that the elastic modulus of mineralized collagen fibrils will increase with the volume fraction and aspect ratio of platelets, but decrease with number of sub unit in representative volume element (RVE) of fibrils. But when the volume fraction of mineral is low, the RVE with more sub unit could obtain a higher elastic modulus by adjusting the distribution of collagen matrix.