Example 3:
Analysis of a hinged knee endoprosthesis

For a variety of endoprosthesic components as well as the stress analysis, the knowledge of contact pressure in wear components is essential. In reality small deviations of the shape have great influence on stress distributions. For the FE analysis the implant geometries have to be modeled as realistically as possible, the contact tolerances in this FE model do not exceed 1/1000mm.

Due to the composition of the FE model by (plane) elements, complex curved contact areas as found in a total knee prosthesis require special "know-how" in FE modeling.