Impact of synovial fluid flow on temperature regulation in knee cartilage

Abstract

a b s t r a c tSeveral studies have reported an increase of temperature in cartilage submitted to cyclic sinusoidal loading. The temperature increase is in part due to the viscous behavior of this tissue, which partially dissipates the input mechanical energy into heat. While the synovial fluid flow within the intra-articular gap and inside the porous cartilage is supposed to play an important role in the regulation of the cartilage temperature, no specific study has evaluated this aspect. In the present numerical study, a poroelastic model of the knee cartilage is developed to evaluate first the temperature increase in the cartilage due to dissipation and second the impact of the synovial fluid flow in the cartilage heat transfer phenomenon. Our results showed that, the local temperature is effectively increased in knee cartilage due to its viscous behavior. The synovial fluid flow cannot significantly preventing this phenomenon. We explain this result by the low permeability of cartilage and the moderate fluid exchange at the surface of cartilage under deformation.

Molecular Dynamic Analysis of Hyaluronic Acid and Phospholipid Interaction in Tribological Surgical Adjuvant Design for Osteoarthritis

“…Although unsaturated, rather than saturated, phosphatidylcholines have been linked to the lubrication of synovial joint organ systems [ 14 , 15 ], DPPC should not yet be abandoned as an adjuvant candidate in certain clinical situations. Like sphingomyelin [ 29 , 44 , 45 ], whose hydrophobic chains are highly saturated, prone to intermolecular hydrogen bonding and lipid raft formation, and exhibit a higher phase transition temperature, DPPC may be important for mitigating heat exchanges associated with the deformation cycles of diseased articular surfaces due to its own higher gel–liquid crystal transition temperature [ 15 , 29 , 46 , 47 ]. Because PLs are present on articular cartilage surfaces in layer and vesicle form, phase transition temperature may be important, in addition to lateral layer heterogeneity, for self-assembly capabilities in association with HA through perturbation forces typically encountered post-treatment [ 29 , 48 ].…”

Heat Induction by Viscous Dissipation Subjected to Symmetric and Asymmetric Boundary Conditions on a Small Oscillating Flow in a Microchannel

“…The geometry and properties for the synovial fluid in artificial hip joint are taken as in the following: The joint gap is 50 µm [19], the dynamic viscosity is 10 mPa•s [19], the average sliding velocity is 0.06 m/s [20], the average angular frequency is 1 rad/s [21], the thermal conductivity is 0.62 W/m•K [22], the specific heat is 3900 J/kg•K [22], the fluid density is 1650 kg/m 3 [23], the body temperature is 37 • C [24], and the net mean fluid temperature is 5.5 • C [24], respectively. Utilising these gathered available information, the calculated values for Brinkman number and Prandtl number are 1.0557 × 10 −5 and 62.9, respectively.…”

Strategies for Improving the Repair of Focal Cartilage Defects

“…Thus, it has recently been proposed that energy dissipation due to a compressive loading might be considered as an overarching variable for optimizing the mechanical stimulation for an enhanced chondrogenesis, as the dissipation encompasses all of the transient fluid-and solid-related physical phenomena occurring subsequent to a dynamic mechanical stimulation [79]. In particular, it has been shown that energy dissipation occurs in cartilage tissue and in biomaterials as they have viscoelastic properties [80], and this dissipation is produced as heat, which in turn increases temperature in cartilage tissue [81,82]. This temperature increase subsequent to a mechanical stimulation has a beneficial effect on chondrogenic expression [83], implying thus the dissipation as a thermo-mechanical variable to consider for the optimization of bioreactor systems.…”