Finite element contact analysis of the hip joint

Abstract

The hip joint plays an important role in the musculoskeletal system; however, current knowledge of the mechanics of the hip joint, especially with regard to the distribution of stress, remains limited. In experimental research, difficulties arise during reproduction of physiological conditions of daily activities and practicable measurement of locations inside the hip joint without violating the physiological environment. On the other hand, numerical approaches, such as finite element analysis, have become useful tools in the field of biomechanics. In finite element contact analysis of the hip joint, due to discretization of contact surfaces, computational instability might occur when the contact nodes move near the edges of the contact elements. In this study, to overcome this problem, a contact smoothing approach was introduced by applying Gregory patches. Contact analysis of the hip joint was then performed for three representative daily activities; i.e., walking, rising up from a chair and knee bending. The effectiveness of the adopted smoothing approach was verified by comparing the results with those obtained experimentally. The distribution and history of contact stress, which have heretofore been scarcely reported, were also obtained and the implications associated with osteoarthritis were discussed.

The effects of impingement and dysplasia on stress distributions in the hip joint during sitting and walking: A finite element analysis

“…The maximum value with CE ¼ 188 was 3.5 MPa, which is quite consistent with our results (3.5 MPa for CE ¼ 208). The recent finite element analysis conducted by Bachtar et al 20 reported the contact pressure as 5.5 MPa, not mentioning the effect of acetabular geometry. Although our results agree with previous computational models in normal joints, the range of contact pressure calculated in our study is higher (up to 16.5 MPa for severe impingement), which was not reported in previous computational models.…”

Using a Finite Element Pediatric Hip Model in Clinical Evaluation - A Feasibility Study

“…Muscles and ligaments were not included in the model. Instead, their effect on the hip joint was replaced by applying the load to the femoral head [17]. To avoid rigid rotations and improve stability, 12 springs were applied around the joint (k = 1 N/mm).…”

Hierarchical Markov Random Fields Applied to Model Soft Tissue Deformations on Graphics Hardware

“…where 1 C , 2 C , 3 C and 4 C are four different kind of cliques. Each involving three pixels, which can be visualized as in Fig.…”

“…As a consequence, image segmentation and volumetric mesh generation are two inevitable steps to be performed. Whereas image segmentation can be performed semi-or fully automatically with some acceptable accuracy, automatic volumetric meshing algorithms are prone to errors and dependent on object topology, desired boundary conditions [1], etc. Therefore semi-manual techniques are often used, which is tedious and time consuming.…”