Title: Analysis of muscle moment and reaction force of elbow joint during flexion movement

Authors: Satish Pujari; Talari Venkatesh; Mandrumaka D.S. Kumar

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lendi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Vizianagarm, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Gayatri Vidya Parishad College of Engineering (A), Visakhapatnam, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lendi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Vizianagarm, India

Abstract: Since its coming of age in the mid 1960s, continuum biomechanics has contributed much to understanding of human health as well as to disease, injury, and their treatment. Nevertheless, biomechanics has yet to reach its full potential as a consistent contributor to the improvement of healthcare delivery. In this research elbow flexion has been analysed and the moment of muscles and the reaction force exerted on the elbow is calculated in the range of motion. The moment of muscles indicate the performance of movement and the reaction force of the joint is believed to be one of the most important causes of damage, something which has not been studied thoroughly enough in previous researches. The elbow joint has been modelled in CATIA software and we use ADAMS software for the analysis which is one of the most powerful ones available in dynamics analyses. The results indicate that the maximum torque of the arm occurs at 94 degrees and it decreases in the beginning and the end of flexion. The reaction force of the elbow in the beginning of motion is at maximum amount and then decreases to 100 degrees, and from that point on it increases up to the end of the motion. These results indicate that the optimum range of elbow flexion occurs in the mid-range of flexion, approximately at 60-140 degrees.

Keywords: muscle moment; elbow flexion; elbow reaction force; ADAMS; CATIA; elbow joint; flexion movement; continuum biomechanics; muscles; modelling; arm torque.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2016.081223

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2016 Vol.22 No.4, pp.370 - 376

Received: 21 Dec 2015
Accepted: 08 Mar 2016
Published online: 29 Dec 2016 *

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