3-BODY SEGMENT DYNAMIC-MODEL OF THE HUMAN KNEE

In this paper, a two-dimensional, three-body segment dynamic model of the human knee is introduced. The model includes tibio-femoral and pat ello-femoral articulations, and anterior cruciate, posterior cruciate, medial collateral, lateral collateral and patellar ligaments. It enab les one to obtain dynamic response of the knee joint to any one or com bination of quadriceps femoris, hamstrings, and gastrocnemius muscle a ctions, as well as any externally applied forces on the lower leg. A s pecially developed human knee animation program is utilized in order t o fine tune some model parameters. Numerical results are presented for knee extension under the impulsive action of the quadriceps femoris m uscle group to simulate a vigorous lower limb activity such as kicking . The model shows that the patella can be subjected to very large tran sient patello-femoral contact force during a strenuous lower limb acti vity even under conditions of small knee-flexion angles. The results a re discussed and compared with limited data reported in the literature .