STRESS EVALUATION OF ARTICULAR CARTILAGE CHONDROCYTE CELL BY USING MULTI-SCALE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD AND SMOOTHED PARTICLE HYDRODYNAMICS METHOD

摘要

The morphology and function of articular cartilage tissue is regenerated through the metabolic activity of cells stimulated by the mechanical loading. In this study, a biphasic multi-scale analyses scheme is adopted for stress evaluation occurred in the chondrocyte cell. The dynamic-explicit finite element (FE) method was employed for the solid phase and the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method was used for the fluid phase. A macro-scale 3D human knee joint FE model was constructed based on magnetic resonance (MR) cross sectional images. Further, we derived the Representative volume element (RVE) based on the Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) observation to build a micro-scale FE model of cartilage tissue. We characterized three layers in the articular cartilage tissue. Parameters of the visco-anisotropic hyperelastic constitutive law and SPH models were determined using experimental results. Biphasic multi-scale FE and SPH analyses were carried out under the maximum loading condition in the normal walking motion. As a result, large flow velocity was observed around chondrocyte in the surface layer. The highest hydrostatic and shear stress occurred on chondrocyte in the surface layer. Numerical results shows a good agreement with experimental results.