The femur or thigh bone, is the closest to the center of the body.

The pair of femur in humans has been shown in Figure 1.

Figure a

The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates with the tibia and patella forming the knee joint. (Figure 2) .By most measures the femur is the strongest, heaviest
Figure b

and longest bone in the body.

The femur contains two distinct morphological types of bone: Cortical (compact) bone Cancellous or Trabecular (spongy) bone These are shown in the figure b. Cortical bone forms a dense cylinder down the shaft of the bone surrounding the central marrow cavity. While cortical bone accounts for 80% of the mass of bone in the human body, it has a much lower
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surface area than cancellous bone due to its lower porosity. Cancellous (or trabecular) bone is located at the ends of long bones, accounts for roughly 20% of the total mass of the skeleton, and has an open, honeycomb structure. It has a much lower Youngs modulus than cortical bone, and this graded modulus gradually matches the properties of the cortical bone to the cartilage that forms the

articulating surface on the femoral head.

Stresses Bones such as the femur are subjected to a bending moment, and the stresses (both tensile and compressive) generated by this bending moment account for the structure and distribution of cancellous and cortical bone. In the upper section of the femur, the cancellous bone is composed of two distinct systems of trabeculae. One system follows curved paths from the inner side of the shaft and radiates outwards to the opposite side of the bones, following the lines of maximum compressive stress. The second system forms curved paths from the outer side of the shaft and intersects the first system at right angles. These trabeculae follow the lines of maximum tensile stress, and in general are lighter in structure than those of the compressive system. The thickness of the trabeculae varies with the magnitude of the stresses at any point, and by following the paths of the principal compressive and tensile stresses they carry these stresses economically. The greatest strength is therefore achieved with the minimum of material.
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The distribution of the compact bone in the shaft is also due to the requirement to resist the bending moment stresses. To resist these stresses, the material should be as far from the neutral axis as possible. A hollow cylinder is the most efficient structure, again achieving the greatest strength with the minimum of material.

Diagram showing computed lines of constant stress from the analysis of various transverse sections

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While designing the famous tower, Maurice Koechlin, assistant to Eiffel, the architect of the tower, was inspired by the femur, the lightest and strongest bone of the human body. The result has been a self-ventilated and strong structure. The femur, which has been a source of inspiration for the tower, is in the shape of a pipe and has a fusiform internal structure, i.e. in which the bone narrows in the middle and expands at each end. This structure provides flexibility and lightness for the bones, yet does not cause them to lose a bit of their strength. In buildings that are constructed in this way, construction material is saved, and the construction's skeletons gain firmness and flexibility. In the 1850s, Meyer had studied the human femur, or thighbone, which connects to the hip. This bone, the largest in our body, has an unusual off-center ball joint that fits into the hip socket. For strength, the bones curved head has many internal bone fibers, called trabeculae. These bone fibers crisscross each other in layers and are precisely aligned to withstand the varying forces of tension and compression. As a result of this ingenious design, the femur efficiently supports and transfers the off-center weight of the person. The femurs ball joint may look awkward, but it functions superbly for a lifetime of movement unless bone disease interferes. Swiss engineer Karl Cullman later generated mathematical models of the femur design.2 In the late 1860s he noted that the trabeculae fibers closely resembled the struts and braces used in buildings. Architect Eiffel then took these ideas and designed his famous Eiffel Tower, the tallest structure in the world at that time, to be built with a minimum amount of iron for maximum strength. The outward flares at the base of the tower resemble the upper curved portion of the femur. The internal wrought-iron braces used in the tower closely follow the design of trabeculae within the femur. The Eiffel Tower has been a Paris landmark for over a century. Including its antennas, the tower reaches a height of 1,063 feet (324 m), or 81 stories. The
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tower marked the entrance to the 1889 exhibition and was originally built as a temporary structure. Competing architects scoffed at the tower, calling it an eyesore and predicting that it would collapse under its own weight. However, it remains today, over a century later, a Paris landmark. It is the destination of millions of tourists annually. The Eiffel Tower today is considered a work of art. A true marvel of human engineering, its elegant design was originally based on Gods design of the human body. As Psalm 139:14 declares, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Compared to compact bone, cancellous bone has a higher surface area to mass ratio because it is less dense. This gives it softer, weaker, and more flexible characteristics. The Eiffel Tower is an iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris, named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. It has a height of 324 metres. When it was completed in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was hailed as a marvel of mans engineering. But its basic design was actually borrowed from the work of an ancient designerthe Creator, who engineered the human femur. In May 1884, Koechlin, working at home, made an outline drawing of their scheme, described by him as "a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals" "not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the century of Industry and Science in which we are living, and for which the way was prepared by the great scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built as an expression of France's gratitude."

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