Shock absorbing ability in healthy and damaged cartilage-bone under high-rate compression

Abstract

Articular cartilage is a soft tissue that distributes the loads in joints and transfers the compressive load to the underlying bone. At high rate and magnitudes of mechanical loading, cartilage and subchondral bone together are susceptible to damage. In addition, any disruption to the cartilage's structure, caused by injury, trauma or disorder such as osteoarthritis (OA), can alter the mechanism of load transfer from the cartilage to the underlying bone. Changes in the cartilage structure can also alter the ability of cartilage-bone to absorb and dissipate the impact energy. To investigate the effects of cartilage degradation on cartilage-bone shock absorption ability, the top 50% of the car..