A 3D Biphasic Finite Element Model of the Human Knee Joint for the Study of Tibiofemoral Contact and Fluid Pressurization

Biphasic theory which considers soft tissue, such as articular cartilage and meniscus, as a combination of a solid and a fluid phase has been widely used to model their biomechanical behavior [1]. Though fluid flow plays an important role in the load-carrying ability of soft tissues, most finite element models of the knee joint consider cartilage and the meniscus as solid. This simplification is due to the fact that biphasic contact is complicated to model. Beside the continuity conditions for displacement and traction that a single-phase contact problem consists of, there are two additional continuity conditions in the biphasic contact problem for relative fluid flow and fluid pressure [2]. The problem becomes even more complex when a joint is being modeled. The knee joint, for example, has multiple contact pairs which make the biphasic finite element model of this joint far more complex. Several biphasic models of the knee have been developed [3–9], yet simplifications were included in these models: (1) the 3D geometry of the knee was represented by a 2D axisymmetric geometry [3, 5, 6, 9]; (2) no fluid flow was allowed between contact surfaces of the soft tissues [4, 8] which is inconsistent with the equation of mass conservation across the contact interface [10]; (3) zero fluid pressure boundary conditions were inaccurately applied around the contact area [7].