Patient specific three dimensional knee model

It has been 60 years since the first knee implant surgery was performed yet questions concerning which material and implant design is most effective for specific populations still remain unanswered. There is a need for a faster, cost effective solution to test implants for their efficacy under physiological conditions. The primary objective of this project is to establish a workable design space for developing meniscal implants. This paper describes the process of building a 3-D model from multiple volumetric MRI data using commercially available segmentation and model building software. The model, when simulated under a variety of physiological conditions using a finite element formulation developed for 3-D contact of biphasic tissues, will be verified against experimental data in whole in-vitro knee tests.