FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF A KNEE JOINT DURING JUMP

Athletes experience high levels of stress during sports activities. One of the most common activities is jumping. This is a very complex activity, which can lead to injuries and long recovery periods. In this research, professional athletes performed jumps in order to obtain ground force values from a force plate. A combination of ground force measurement and inverse dynamics was used to obtain knee joint force values during jumping. The obtained values were then used for the finite element analysis of a knee joint model in order to calculate stress values in the knee joint, with focus on femoral cartilage and menisci. The highest stress values were obtained at the anterior and posterior horn of the medial meniscus, with the highest stress value of 4.894 MPa. Femoral cartilage had lower value, with the maximum stress of 0.391 MPa.