Nitinol artificial anterior cruciate ligament: A finite element study

NiTi alloys are used in a variety of medical devices, due to its combination of mechanical properties that include super-elasticity, shape memory and corrosion resistance. This paper present a finite element (FE) analysis, to study the behavior of an artificial anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) made from nitinol. Considering the human ACL reconstruction aspects, the proposed artificial ACL was inserted into the finite element model of the knee joint. Results showed that the values of the stress are below the transformation plateau of nitinol's martensitic phase and the material can recover all the strain.