Potentiality of a new code to study ligament-bone interactions in human joints

The knowledge of spatial relative location of ligaments and bones at the human joints is fundamental for the study of joint mobility and stability. Several papers have described the ligament configuration for different joint positions based on experimental data, but there is a lack of integrated tools that provide the spatial configuration of the ligament fibers taking into account both fiber elasticity and the constraint for adjacent fibers and bones to not penetrate each other. In this study the potentiality of a new code is presented which provides the spatial configuration of the ligaments in a human joint for a given bones’ position. As an example of application, a tibiocalcaneal ligament configuration is analyzed during the anterior drawer test (ADT) of the ankle joint complex.