Abstract:
Osteoporosis has been characterized as a skeletal disorder of reduced bone strength that leads to an
increased risk of fracture. As the age of the person grows, early diagnosis of the disease is necessary to
maintain good bone strength and to avoid unbearable fractures. While the disease cannot be reversed,
it can be effectively managed by detecting bone density variations. Recently introduced non-stationary
thermal wave imaging techniques have gained wide acceptance in the thermal non-destructive testing
research community due to their merits over the conventional methods. This paper attempts to test
the capabilities of one of the widely used non-stationary thermal imaging techniques to characterize
the severity of osteoporosis in the modeled human bone. A 3D finite element analysis has been carried
out to model a multilayered bone having different density variations, with tissue, skin and muscle over
layers. Obtained results from frequency domain analysis scheme has been studied in order to detect
the density variations with improved test sensitivity.
