Help with curved specimen and mechanical loading

Background:

Rib fractures in infants are highly suggestive of child abuse. I am performing mechanical testing and finite element analysis on pig ribs with the aim of characterising the behaviour of ribs under anterior-posterior (from end to end rather from the side) loading.



Help needed:

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions on how to interpret my mechanical data. Perhaps someone has performed mechanical testing on curved specimens before? I have the loads to failure of the rib and rough geometry. I will assume the cross sections are eliptical and the ribs are C-shaped.

Thanks in advance.