Abstract
Reconstruction of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) has been a major focus in sports medicine over twenty years. Severe or un-repairable damage of the ACL due to sport injury is a major problem faced by orthopedic surgeons and engineers. In order to replace or reconstruct an injured ACL, the mechanical properties as well as the dimensional limitation of the material used must be similar to the biological ligaments. Although excessive literature describes experimental investigation on the mechanical property and clinical application of the ligament material, there are little analytical studies that describe strains, stresses, and endurance in the bone/ligament/bone complex. The Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a method to study this problem. The objectives of the present investigation are (1) developing a finite element model (FEM) of an artificial ligament yarn, the emphasis is put on the development of the elastic FEM, and (2) analyzing stress distribution in the ligament yarn fibers due to various loading conditions and design parameters. Results obtained from the FEM of the ACL prosthesis yarn are confirmed by experimental measurements using tensile test.
