Elastic Stress Singularities: Implications for the Attachment of Tendon to Bone

The material mismatch at the attachment of tendon to bone is amongst the most severe for any tensile connection in nature. This is related to the large difference between the stiffness of tendon and bone, whose moduli of elasticity vary by two orders of magnitude. Predictably, such an abrupt change in the stiffness realized over a very narrow insertion site results in high local stresses. One of the implications of the stress distribution is a potential for stress singularities at the junction of the insertion to the bone.