Abstract
After the total knee arthroplasty, it is important to evaluate between the patella component and the femoral component, because patella components affect the flexion angle. There are many types of artificial knee joint. Among them, we focused on the artificial knee joint which lateral and medial condyle of femoral component is asymmetry. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanisms of contact between the patellofemoral joint. Femur and tibia were created by aluminum alloy. The implanted knee model was constructed to replace the posterior-stabilized artificial knee joint which lateral and medial condyle of femoral component is asymmetry to them. Artificial ligaments were used as quadriceps model and patellar tendon model. The contact pressure were measured at seven flexion angle (90 degree, 100 degree, 110 degree, 120 degree, 130 degree and 140degree) under the applied loads of 1000N. In result, the contact pressure was considered to increase with rising flexion angle, but such a phenomenon was not showed. Lateral contact area showed higher values than the medial contact area significantly in all flexion angle. But, in the average pressure and max average pressure, there were case where the medial is higher than lateral. Understanding the advantage and disadvantage of the patella component function may help to develop sophisticated component design.
