The design of a knee prosthesis by finite element analysis

Resumen

The purpose of this paper is to study two types of knee prosthesis that are based on the Finite Element Method (FEM). The process to generate the Finite Element (FE) models was conducted in several steps. A 3D geometric model of a healthy knee joint was created using 3D scanned data from an anatomical knee model. This healthy model comprises a portion of the long bones (femur, tibia and fibula) as well as by the lateral and medial meniscus, cartilage and ligaments. The digital model that was obtained was repaired and converted to an engineering drawing format using CATIA© software. Based on the foregoing format, two types of artificial knee prostheses were designed and assembled. Mentat Marc© software was used to model the healthy and artificial knee FE models. The healthy and artificial knee FE models were subjected to different loads. The anthropometry of the human body that was studied and the combination of loads to apply to the knee were obtained by use of 3D Static Strength Prediction software (3DSSPP©). The Von Mises stresses, as well as all the relative displacements of the components of the healthy and artificial knee FE model, were obtained from the Mentat Marc© software. The Von Mises stresses for both the cortical and the trabecular bone of the artificial and healthy knee FE model were analyzed and compared. The stresses that were obtained from the two knee prosthesis that were studied based on the artificial FE models were very similar to those stresses that were obtained from healthy FE models. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017.