Finite Element Analysis of Human Prosthetic Knee Joint

Abstract

Arthritis is the wearing out of the cartilage that lines the ends of the tibia and femur within the knee joint This causes pain in the knee joint leading to the immediate replacement by the artificial components The artificial joints need to satisfy and meet certain design requirements in addition to being biocompatible Insertion of these joints in human should not result in too much of discomfort and postoperative treatment Further the life and performance of the artificial joints is of prime concern During activation contact is established between tibia and femoral components leading to stresses at the interface which in turn dictates the performance of the joint The intensity of the developed stresses at the interface depends on several factors such as sagittal radius flexion angles materials used for tibia femoral components and the load acting on the bearing surfaces of the joint To ensure reduction in the stress intensity it is of utmost importance to ensure the optimization of the design of the prosthetic knee joint considering the above said factors In this regard FEM the most powerful and widely accepted numerical tool to predict the state of stress is currently gaining importance in optimization of design of knee joint In the light of the above this paper discusses the modeling and finite element analysis of prosthetic knee joints