Knee Joint Models for Kneeling Biomechanics - Computational Biomechanics of the Musculoskeletal System - page 85

FIgure 7.2

Partition strategy for meshing process with hexahedral elements.

The number of elements is an important factor that needs be considered when developing FE
models. Too many elements will slow down the calculation process, while too few elements will
result in loss of accuracy. Convergence tests are typically run to overcome this problem, whereby
the element density is increased incrementally until the difference in results for each successive
model becomes negligible. However, since there have already been a great number of models devel-
oped for the knee joint, meshing details can be referenced from the literature. In our model, the
element size for cartilage ranged from 0.8 mm to 1.6 mm, and was around 2 mm for the remain-
ing parts (Figure 7.3). This mesh density has been proven to be accurate enough for convergence
(Donahue et al. 2002).