Biomechanical engineers often use biological bone for studies, especially for implants and corrective surgeries. However, biological bone is expensive to source and ship, varies in quality and cost, and can arrive in a degraded or diseased state that is unsuitable for research.

For nearly 40 years, SynboneVR has developed synthetic bones used in biomechanical research as a way to offset some of the cost and risk of using biological bone. Biomechanical engineers continue to rely on these synthetic bones as standards for comparison in their own orthopedic design work. However, there is no prior research that summarizes the mechanical properties of these synthetic bones in order to understand their general performance, or how well they represent biological bone.