An Application of Beam Theory to Determine the Stress and Deformation of Long Bones.

We present a generalized beam theory in which deformation and load are determined simultaneously, in order to analyze statically indeterminant problems involving long bones. We regard a long bone as a beam curved in three dimensions for which the cross-sectional properties vary continuously along its length. The theory is used to determine the force, moment, deflection and twist along the fifth metatarsal when it is subjected to both a pointwise and a distributed load