TY - JOUR
T1 - A knee-specific finite element analysis of the human anterior cruciate ligament impingement against the femoral intercondylar notch
AU - Park, Hyung Soon
AU - Ahn, Chulhyun
AU - Fung, David T.
AU - Ren, Yupeng
AU - Zhang, Li Qun
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the support of the NIH including the Extramural ( R01-AR056050 , R01-HD044295 and R01-AR045634 ) and the Intramural (NIH/CRC) programs.
PY - 2010/7
Y1 - 2010/7
N2 - This work presents a finite element analysis of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) impingement against the intercondylar notch during tibial external rotation and abduction, as a mechanism of noncontact ACL injuries. Experimentally, ACL impingement was measured in a cadaveric knee in terms of impingement contact pressure and six degrees-of-freedom tibiofemoral kinematics. Three-dimensional geometries of the ACL, femur and tibia were incorporated into the finite element model of the individual knee specimen. A fiber-reinforced model was adopted, which accounts for the anisotropy, large deformation, nonlinearity and incompressibility of the ACL. With boundary conditions specified based on the experimental tibiofemoral kinematics, the finite element analysis showed that impingement between the ligament and the lateral wall of intercondylar notch could occur when qthe knee at 45° was externally rotated at 29.1° and abducted at 10.0° Strong contact pressure and tensile stress occurred at the impinging and nonimpinging sides of the ligament, respectively. The impingement force and contact area estimated from the model matched their counterparts from the corresponding cadaver experiment. The modeling and experimental approach provides a useful tool to characterize potential ACL impingement on a knee-specific basis, which may help elucidate the ACL injury mechanism and develop more effective treatments.
AB - This work presents a finite element analysis of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) impingement against the intercondylar notch during tibial external rotation and abduction, as a mechanism of noncontact ACL injuries. Experimentally, ACL impingement was measured in a cadaveric knee in terms of impingement contact pressure and six degrees-of-freedom tibiofemoral kinematics. Three-dimensional geometries of the ACL, femur and tibia were incorporated into the finite element model of the individual knee specimen. A fiber-reinforced model was adopted, which accounts for the anisotropy, large deformation, nonlinearity and incompressibility of the ACL. With boundary conditions specified based on the experimental tibiofemoral kinematics, the finite element analysis showed that impingement between the ligament and the lateral wall of intercondylar notch could occur when qthe knee at 45° was externally rotated at 29.1° and abducted at 10.0° Strong contact pressure and tensile stress occurred at the impinging and nonimpinging sides of the ligament, respectively. The impingement force and contact area estimated from the model matched their counterparts from the corresponding cadaver experiment. The modeling and experimental approach provides a useful tool to characterize potential ACL impingement on a knee-specific basis, which may help elucidate the ACL injury mechanism and develop more effective treatments.
KW - ACL impingement
KW - Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)
KW - Finite element analysis
KW - Noncontact ACL injury
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2010.03.015
DO - 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2010.03.015
M3 - Article
C2 - 20413123
AN - SCOPUS:77954141956
SN - 0021-9290
VL - 43
SP - 2039
EP - 2042
JO - Journal of Biomechanics
JF - Journal of Biomechanics
IS - 10
ER -