Author(s)

C. Shashishekar & C. S. Ramesh

Abstract

Degenerative arthritis is a disease that affects the line cartilage of the knee joint. It causes severe pain in the joint and may require a replacement surgery of the affected knee with artificial components. The aim of this research was to study the distribution of contact stresses in prosthetic knee joints made out of polyethylene chopped carbon fibre composite and conventional polyethylene. Commercially available software (ANSYS 8.1) was used in numerical experiments. The effect of the sagittal radius, flexion angles and external load on stresses in the joint were investigated in numerical experiments. Results showed lower contact stresses in the tibial part of the polyethylene chopped carbon fibre composite artificial joint compared to the tibia made out of polyethylene. Keywords: tibia, knee joint, arthritis, sagittal radius, flexion angle. 1 Introduction Degenerative arthritis of the knee joint is a disease that affects the line cartilage of the tibia and the femur. It causes severe pain and may require a replacement surgery of the affected knee with artificial components. Artificial joints should satisfy certain design requirements, i.e., they should be ergonomical and biocompatible. During activation, stresses are developed at the interface of joint, which in turn dictates the performance of the joint. The intensity of the stresses developed depends on several factors like, sagittal radius, flexion angle, material of tibia and femoral components and load acting on the bearing surface of the joint. To ensure the stress intensity, it is important to optimise the design of prosthetic knee joint. In this regard, FEM the most powerful numerical tool can be used to optimise the design. The sagittal radius is varied from 40–60mm and the flexion angles of 00,200,and 400 have been considered. The thickness of tibia

Keywords

tibia, knee joint, arthritis, sagittal radius, flexion angle.