Experimental and numerical investigation of different types of articular cartilage replacement materials

The aim of the presented work is to characterize the mechanical properties of different types of articular cartilage replacement materials. For this propose an elastic-diffusion model is developed to identify the elastic and diffusion properties of the replacement materials. A set of unconfined compression tests were performed with several kinds of implants. By means of finite element simulation integrated with an user-defined material model, the material parameters were identified. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)