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Intraarticular fractures (IAFs) are a leading cause of posttraumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA). Despite the latest orthopaedic treatment techniques, the risk of PTOA after IAFs has remained unacceptably high. In order to progress in this field, a new mechanical insult technique to create a large animal survival model of human IAF was developed. Current IAF models report the initial gravitational potential energy as the fracture energy value. However, this model included a pendulum device that was instrumented to accurately measure the amount of energy absorbed during fracture insult.
After validating the energy absorption measurement with a mechanical testing machine and motion capture system, an in vivo study was conducted. The range of energy absorption measurements during fracture of the eleven animals was 11.7 é31.8 joules, with a mean and standard deviation of 20.8 ± 5.7 joules. On average, the energy absorption measurements were approximately 52 percent of the pre – impact kinetic energy values. These data showed that there was a substantial difference between the energy absorbed during fracture insult and the pre éimpact energy, which provided novel information associated with the pathomechanics of the induced injury.