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Article in International Journal for Interactive Design and Manufacturing (IJIDeM) · May 2013
DOI: 10.1007/s12008-012-0167-7
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Received: 24 January 2012 / Accepted: 1 June 2012 / Published online: 14 June 2012
© Springer-Verlag 2012
Abstract Aim of this work is to compare two different total and FEM to modify the shape of the stabilizing cam of the
knee prostheses that differ mainly in the shape of the poly- best prosthesis, in order to reduce the stress peaks in the
ethylene (PE) component inserted between the femoral and original prosthesis without affecting kinematics of the joint.
tibial plates. The best solution between them has been origi- Good results have been obtained both in terms of stress and
nally reshaped in order to reduce stress peaks. The study pro- contact pressure peaks reduction.
cedure has been divided into the following steps. First step
is the digitalisation of the shape of the prostheses by means Keywords Total knee replacement · FEM simulation ·
of a 3D laser scanner. The morphology of two prototypes Contact analysis
of the prostheses has been acquired by elaborating multiple
Moirè fringe patterns projected on their surfaces. Second step 1 Introduction
consisted on the manipulation of these data in a CAD mod-
ule, that is the interpolation of raw data into NURBS sur- Total knee joint replacement allows the patient to restore the
faces, reducing singularities due to the typical scattering of full functionality of the knee joint and to overcome arthritic
the acquiring system. Third step has been the setting up of pain. Clinical studies are reported in literature [1] where dif-
FEM simulations to evaluate the prostheses behaviour under ferent solutions are compared in terms of geometry and kine-
benchmark loading conditions given in literature. The CAD matics of the mating components.
model of the prostheses has been meshed into solid finite Such a prosthesis consists of femoral and tibial metallic
elements. Different flexion angles configurations have been plates rigidly bonded to the bones, separated by a plastic
analysed, the load being applied along the femoral axis. FEM spacer. Usually, femoral and tibial components are made of
analyses have returned stress fields in the PE insert and, in titanium, while the plastic insert is made of Polyethylene
particular, in the stabilizing cam which function is to avoid (PE).
dislocation. Last step has been the integrated use of CAD Some cases are found [2] where an hybrid knee implant,
combining a polymer-composite with an existing stainless
T. Ingrassia · V. Nigrelli · V. Ricotta steel implant system is studied: this solution is expected to
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Chimica, Gestionale,
Informatica e Meccanica, Università degli Studi di Palermo,
transfer load to the femur more effectively compared to con-
Viale delle Scienze, 90128 Palermo, Italy ventional metallic implants.
The PE insert can be shaped in a way that dislocation
L. Nalbone of the joint for high values of flexion angles is avoided.
Ambulatorio di Ortopedia e Traumatologia, Azienda Ospedaliera
Universitaria Policlinico Paolo Giaccone di Palermo,
Prolonged use of this prosthesis can cause wearing of the
90100 Palermo, Italy contact surfaces of PE; the creation of debris can lead to
infection and, eventually, to a reduced ability of the patient.
D. Tumino (B) Load applied to the knee joint during normal activity of the
Facoltà di Ingegneria, Architettura e delle Scienze motorie,
Università degli Studi di Enna Kore, Cittadella Universitaria,
patient has been clinically studied in literature. In [3] kine-
94100 Enna, Italy matic and loads acting on the knee are studied especially
e-mail: davide.tumino@unikore.it in cases of deep flexion angles: largest values of posterior
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92 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2013) 7:91–101
forces on the joint are found to be related to flexion angles and one with a third median condyle. Numerical compari-
greater than 90◦ . The load-deflection response of the knee in a sons have been performed in terms of contact and equivalent
fully extended configuration is studied in [4] by means, also, stresses on the plastic insert for both models. Furthermore,
of finite element analyses. Similar numerical techniques are geometric modifications of the anti-dislocation element are
used in [5] to study different combination of flexion angles proposed to enhance the stress distribution and minimize the
with axial forces and to calculate the resulting contact areas. risk of wearing and fracture damage.
The experimental measurements performed in [6] point out
that, in isokinetic knee extension, a large influence on peak
and average force values is given by torque of the knee. Other 2 The knee joint prosthesis
tests performed in [7,8] have returned the force applied to the
knee joint during a gait cycle in the condition of level and The knee prosthesis is an artificial joint made usually of
downhill walking: the latter condition is the most demanding metallic alloy and plastic materials, that can replace the dam-
in terms of net forces, with a maximum load acting on the aged knee totally or partially [1]. The total prosthesis consists
knee equal to 15 N/kg of body mass. of three components: the femoral part, the tibial part and the
Contact stress distribution in the PE insert follows from plastic insert that replaces menisci in a healthy knee. Figure 1
the shape of sliding surfaces. Measurements via thin film sen- shows a standard total prosthesis.
sors are reported in [9] where, under a constant femoral load Two different total prostheses are objects of this work:
value, the contact areas of the medial and lateral compart- one is produced by Stryker Corp., the other is produced by
ments are calculated together with the load acting on each Tornier Surgical Implants. Both of them are considered as
compartment. Whether if the femoral load is differently split posterior stabilised prosthesis because their shape is made in
on the two compartments, the contact pressure is similarly a way to prevent possible dislocation of the joint due to high
distributed on the two surfaces. flexion angles of the knee joint. Figure 2 shows the two men-
In [10] finite element analyses are performed on two pos- tioned prostheses. Femoral and tibial components are made
terior stabilised joints, one with a flat and one with a curved of titanium alloy Ti6Al4V, while the plastic insert is made of
post cam. Results show that the second solution reduces Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene UHMWPE.
peaks and average values of Von Mises stress in the PE Main differences between the two prostheses are related
insert. The reduction of stress concentration gives benefits to the plastic insert: in the Stryker prosthesis, the PE insert
in terms of wearing reduction of the plastic material. In the has a central cam element that goes in contact with the mate
same paper, the influence of flexion angles on the contact surface in the femoral plate when the flexion angle exceeds
stress distribution is analysed, namely increasing the flexion a limit value; in Tornier prosthesis, the PE insert has a third
leads to greater contact peaks.
Results of numerical explicit analyses can be found [11]
for a total knee replacement without a posterior cam. This
Femoral component
method is used to find the position of the joint for each flex-
ion angle of the gait cycle. Also loads and contact pressure
are calculated and it has been found that the maximum stress
concentration appears in proximity of the mid point of the
gait cycle.
Beneath the solution of a posterior stabilising cam has a
widespread diffusion in clinical application [12], new mod-
els are recently available that are characterised by a different
shape of the anti-dislocation system; one of these uses a third Plastic spacer
median condyle instead of a post stabilising cam. In [13] a
clinical follow-up study of the performances of this type of
prosthesis has been performed; their results are only in terms
of functionality of the replacements on the patient. To the
author’s knowledge, no mechanical analysis has been per-
formed on the third median condyle joint and no comparison
has ever been done with the posterior stabilising cam solu-
tion, in terms of stress distribution during normal activity of
Tibial component
the prosthesis.
In this work two posterior-stabilized knee joint prostheses Fig. 1 The total knee replacement (courtesy of Tornier Surgical
have been compared, one with a posterior stabilising cam Implants)
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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2013) 7:91–101 93
Fig. 2 Comparison between the systems under analysis: Stryker (left) and Tornier (right)
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94 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2013) 7:91–101
3 Loads and constraints on knee prosthesis transmitted to the femur through the hip and can be decom-
posed into two components: one (FA ) along the femoral axis
The determination of loads acting on the knee joint during and another (FT ) perpendicular to it. By imposing the equi-
real working conditions is not a trivial task and requires suit- librium between the femur/knee system and assuming the
able assumptions. A schematic representation of the human lower part of the tibial component as locked (Fig. 4) [11], it
skeleton has been defined in Fig. 4. In this scheme femur can be deduced what follows. Due to the fact that the knee
and tibia are considered as link elements, while main artic- works like a cylindrical joint, it can only react to the axial load
ulations (hip, knee and ankle) are assumed to be cylindrical F A , while the force FT and themoment due to it are balanced
joints [15]. Considering a general position where a person through the muscles [15] that generate axial and transversal
maintains both feet on the ground, the vertical force (FB ) forces but also a reaction moment (MM ).
due to the body weight is equally split between the two legs. In this study, nevertheless, it was assumed to consider only
When a person, instead, stays on a single foot (for example the axial forces acting on the femur and to neglect the trans-
when climbing the stairs), the whole body weight is trans- versal forces and the moment due to the muscles forces. This
mitted to the ground by means of only a leg. assumption does not reduce the quality of results because
Of course such a situation is very common and represents the force along the femoral axis is the one that mainly pro-
one of the worst load conditions for the knee. duces contact stresses between the femoral part and the plas-
In this study the main interest is to evaluate the stress tic insert of the prosthesis.
and pressure values at the interface between the femoral part According with experimental tests in literature [6–8], three
and plastic insert interface, so different working conditions configurations have been studied: φ = 60◦ , 90◦ and 120◦ .
have been investigated by changing the knee flexion angle φ First two values can easily be reached when climbing the
(Fig. 5). stairs (Fig. 4) with different heights of the steps, last value,
instead, is the maximum flexion angle that can be reached in
3.1 Assumptions and limitations a normal use of the prosthesis, for example when squatting
down (Fig. 6). Different contact regions correspond to each
To evaluate the maximum forces on a knee during a nor- of these angles for both Stryker and Tornier joints [9]. In all
mal working condition, it is useful to consider the scheme the analysed configurations, a reference load of 500 N, that
in Fig. 4. In this case, to simplify the load analysis, a sin- takes into account both the force FA and the axial compo-
gle leg support has been studied. The body force (FB ) is nent of the muscles reaction forces [15], is applied on the
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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2013) 7:91–101 95
femur along its axis. Same benchmark load has been used in
literature [10].
Moreover, to apply the axial load to the joint, the femo-
ral bone has been simulated as a cylindrical bar fixed to the
upper component of the knee prosthesis. This model does
not reduce the quality of the results because, as said, the only
considered load acts along the femur towards the knee joint
centre so it is not affected by the shape of the bone.
4 FEM analysis
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Fig. 8 Contour map of the contact stress in the Stryker (left) and Tornier (right) prostheses with φ = 60◦
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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2013) 7:91–101 97
Fig. 9 Contour map of the equivalent stress in the Stryker (left) and Tornier (right) prostheses with φ = 60◦
Fig. 10 Contour map of the contact stress in the Stryker (left) and Tornier (right) prostheses with φ = 90◦
Fig. 11 Contour map of the equivalent stress in the Stryker (left) and Tornier (right) prostheses with φ = 90◦
and equivalent stress. The central cam area is always more stress (85.7 MPa). Low stresses are present in the meniscal
stressed than the meniscal compartments. compartments, but peak values are definitively lower than the
one in the central guide.
Stress concentration at the end of the central guide is more
4.2 FEM results: Tornier prosthesis
severe in the case of φ = 120◦ , as Figs. 12 and 13 reveal. In this
condition, the maximum contact pressure is about 139 MPa,
Same loading conditions have been applied to the Tornier
while the stress peak is equal to 150 MPa. Now the meniscal
prosthesis. In the above mentioned Figs. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
compartments are fully unloaded and all the external load is
and 13, contact regions and stress distributions are shown
supported by the central guide.
for the PE insert under different flexion angles. Figures 8
and 9 are related to φ = 60◦ . Contact is distributed over the
meniscal compartments in two symmetric areas, the central 4.3 FEM results: comparison of the two prostheses
guide is unloaded. In this case, the pressure and equivalent
stress peak values are, respectively, equal to 66 and 37.5 MPa. Results of the analyses previously performed show that the
Figures 10 and 11 are related to φ = 90◦ . Contact is con- most stressed region of the two prostheses is the central one,
centrated at the end of the central guide where a stress peak is both acting as a cam (in the case of Stryker version) or as
present, both in terms of contact (115.7 MPa) and equivalent a guide (in the case of Tornier version). Results obtained
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Fig. 12 Contour map of the contact stress in the Stryker (left) and Tornier (right) prostheses with φ = 120◦
Fig. 13 Contour map of the equivalent stress in the Stryker (left) and Tornier (right) prostheses with φ = 120◦
Fig. 14 Comparison of the maximum contact stress values for the two prostheses
for the two joints are collected in the following diagrams in subjected to lower stress peaks. This aspect leads to a higher
Figs. 14 and 15, where maximum contact stress and equiv- resistance to wearing and static failure of the PE insert.
alent stress in the PE insert are compared. For each case
meniscal compartments are not stressed as the central areas. 4.4 FEM results: improvement of the Stryker prosthesis
With the exception of the case of φ = 60◦ , where the cen-
tral guide of the Tornier prosthesis is unloaded, for the other In the previous paragraph, it has been proved that, in terms
load cases it is clearly shown that the Stryker prosthesis is of maximum stresses in the PE insert, the Stryker prosthesis
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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2013) 7:91–101 99
Fig. 15 Comparison of the maximum equivalent stress values for the two prostheses
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100 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2013) 7:91–101
Fig. 17 Comparison of the maximum contact stress in the cam for the original and the modified version of the Stryker prosthesis
Fig. 18 Comparison of the maximum equivalent stress in the cam for the original and the modified version of the Stryker prosthesis
Last step of this work has been the redesign of the Stryker angle varies. Then, considerations about the wearing and
prosthesis in order to enhance its behaviour at high flexion fatigue prediction of the prosthesis during his life-cycle could
angles. The posterior cam of the PE insert has been reshaped, be done.
by giving a different tangent angle of 20◦ , and smoothed.
Lower contact stress peaks have been obtained for this mod- References
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