ARUP; ISBN: 978-0-9562121-5-3 - CMBBE 2012 - Cardiff University

Implant
Fig.2. Axisymmetric representation of the femoral cartilage with metal implant filling assumed defect at
the center. Implant diameter 10 mm. Modified from Wilson et al., (2003).
The growth deformations are inputted thorough the inelastic deformation tensors
defined in COMSOL. The average load on the cartilage surface was assumed to be 2
times body weight and linearly varying along the surface; highest at the axisymmetric
axis and lowest at the end.
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Femoral cartilage
The deformation of articular cartilage after one day of growth and the joint mechanical
loading (2 times body weight on one condyle) was shown in Fig.3. We observed that the
cartilage was growing on to the implant.
Fig.3. Deformed configuration of articular cartilage after simulating one day of growth
and joint loading.
The study mainly focused on developing a conceptual analytical model for cartilage
growth with the metal implant filling degenerated portion of the articular cartilage in the
knee joint. The individual constituents (PG’s and COL) are assumed to be growing in
the stress free reference configuration. We assumed that the mechanical environment in
our models is close to the experimental conditions in Ficklin et al., (2009) and Davol et