Analysis of the Static and Dynamic Mechanical Behavior of a Tibial Bone-Knee Implant Assembly Without a Tibial Extension

Abstract

The ever-growing number of total knee replacement (TKR) surgical procedures has brought a proportional increase in the number of knee replacement revision operations. Among the causes of the early failure of a knee implant are the weakening and displacement of the tibial component. To avoid revision surgery and extend the lifespan of the implant, it is really useful to perform a finite element analysis in order to identify the areas that may be prone to cause the weakening of the tibial component. The purpose of this paper is the virtual modeling of the tibia-knee implant assembly and the analysis of its mechanical behavior both in the static and the dynamic regime. For this purpose, we will look at the case of an implant without tibial extension and analyze the healthy bone in comparison with the osteoporotic bone. The results from the static stress, fatigue, linear and nonlinear dynamic stress tests confirm that the healthy bone has a higher mechanical strength and a lower degree of damage than the affected bone, under the same stress conditions.