Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

3766

Bhavya Vendra

Date

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Biomedical Engineering

Committee Chair

John L Williams

Committee Member

Esra Roan

Committee Member

Omar Skalli

Committee Member

Sharon King

Abstract

The physis, or growth plate, is a layer of cartilage responsible for long bone growth. It is organized into reserve, proliferative and hypertrophic zones. Unlike the reserve zone, where chondrocytes are arranged randomly, either singly or in pairs, the proliferative and hypertrophic chondrosytes are organized within a tubular structure called a chondron. Strain gradients within the growth plate have been found to be heterogenous with an apparent random pattern. No study to date has examined how chondrons deform when the physis is compressed. This thesis reports on a method to measure structural deformations along the entire lengths of chondrons when the physis is subjected to physiological (20%) and hyperphysiological (30% and 40%) levels of compression. The results allow for an interpretation of the apparent random heterogeneity in strains in terms of bending and shearing deformations of chondron structures and provide an explanation for the tensile strains reported in previous studies.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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