Experimental Determination of the Permeability in the Lacunar-Canalicular Porosity of Bone

Permeability of the mineralized bone tissue is a critical element in understanding fluid flow occurring in the lacunar-canalicular porosity (PLC) compartment of bone and its role in bone nutrition and mechanotransduction. However, the estimation of bone permeability at the tissue level is affected by the influence of the vascular porosity in macroscopic samples containing several osteons. In this communication, both analytical and experimental approaches are proposed to estimate the lacunar-canalicular permeability in a single osteon. Data from an experimental stress-relaxation test in a single osteon are used to derive the PLC permeability by curve fitting to theoretical results from a compressible transverse isotropic poroelastic model of a porous annular disk under a ramp loading history (2007, “Compressible and Incompressible Constituents in Anisotropic Poroelasticity: The Problem of Unconfined Compression of a Disk,” J. Mech. Phys. Solids, 55, pp. 161–193; 2008, “The Unconfined Compression of a Poroelastic Annular Cylindrical Disk,” Mech. Mater., 40(6), pp. 507–523). The PLC tissue intrinsic permeability in the radial direction of the osteon was found to be dependent on the strain rate used and within the range of O(10−24)–O(10−25). The reported values of PLC permeability are in reasonable agreement with previously reported values derived using finite element analysis (FEA) and nanoindentation approaches.