Prediction of guided waves excitability to support the non-invasive ultrasonic assessment of human elongated bones

In this work the dispersive pattern of guided waves propagating in a human radius is obtained by means of a semi-analytical finite element (SAFE) formulation. From a Computed Tomography (CT) three dimensional image, a representative cross-section of the radius is extracted and exploited to build a bi-dimensional mesh of triangles. Such mesh is next used as a support to extract the dispersive guided wave equation by means of a Semi Analytical Finite Element (SAFE) formulation. The dispersion curves of the existing waves are computed and the excitability of the existing dispersive waves is highlighted for different forcing function generally applied by medical devices. These results can support the research on non-invasive techniques based on stress waves for osteoporosis detection and monitoring of long bones (radius, tibia, femur).