The tibio-femoral contact area in five current popular total knee joint replacements has been measured using pressure-sensitive film under a normal load of 2.5 kN and at several angles of flexion. The corresponding maximum contact pressure has been estimated from the measured contact areas and found to exceed the point at which plastic deformation is expected in the ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) component, particularly at flexion angles near 90 degrees. The measured contact area and the estimated maximum contact stress have been found to be similar in magnitude for all of the five knee joint replacements tested. A significant difference, however, has been found in maximum contact pressure predicted from linear elasticity analysis for the different knee joints. This indicates that varying amounts of plastic deformation occurred in the polyethylene component in the different knee designs. It is important to know the extent of damage as knees with large amounts of plastic deformation are more likely to suffer low cycle fatigue failure. It is therefore concluded that the measurement of contact areas alone can be misleading in the design of and deformation in total knee joint replacements. It is important to modify geometries to reduce the maximum contact stress as predicted from the linear elasticity analysis, to below the linear elastic limit of the plastic component.
This paper presents the design of a highly efficient pneumatic motor system. The air engine is currently the most generally used device to convert potential energy of compressed air into mechanical energy. However, the efficiency of the air engines is too low to provide sufficient operating range for the vehicle. In this study, the energy contained in compressed air/pressurized hydraulic oil is transformed by a hydraulic motor to mechanical energy to enhance the efficiency of using air power. To evaluate the theoretical efficiency, the principle of balance of energy is applied. The theoretical efficiency of converting air into hydraulic energy is found to be a function of pressure; thus, the maximum converting efficiency can be determined. To confirm the theoretical evaluation, a prototype of the pneumatic hydraulic system is built. The experiment verifies that the theoretical evaluation of the system efficiency is reasonable, and that the layout of the system is determined by the results of theoretical evaluation.
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