A collection of fundamental structural adaptations is defined for how compacta and
spongiosa respond to overloading in compression, tension, and flexure, alone and in
combinations. Those adaptations underlie most physiological tissue- and organ-level
structural adaptations of healthy intact bones to mechanical usage. A biomechanical
function called the Gamma function is then devised to predict from a structure’s net
end loads and the strain history of any given small bone surface domain, whether mechanically
induced formation, resorption or neither will occur in that domain. A separate function
is devised to predict local rates of modeling from local strain histories. These functions
correctly predict varied details of all of the fundamental adaptations and they also
suggest new laws for the mechanical control of bone architecture, some of which are
presented.
Key words
Bone - Biomechanics - Bone architecture - Bone remodeling - Bone modeling - Wolff’s
law - Intermediary organization
