Biomechanical analysis and modeling of anterior cruciate ligament rupture conditions: focus on female football (soccer) players

In the sport context, the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is the second most common injury. It predominantly occurs when pivoting, single-leg landing, sharp changes in running direction on uneven surfaces are required. It is reported that female athletes have 4 to 6 times higher risk than men to suffer from some sort of ACL injury. With a modelling approach, the goal of this work is to investigate the most critical knee configuration for ACL integrity and the main risk factors that predispose to ACL injuries. A musculoskeletal model has been developed and finely tuned with experimental data collected in a motion capture laboratory. Static optimisation has been used to solve the redundant system of equations of motion, which was used to describe the anterior posterior balance between muscle and ligament forces along the tibial plateau. Results suggest that: 1) at small knee flexion angles the ACL injury can occur due to ACL alignment with tangential forces acting in parallel at the tibial plateau and no other major synergistic actions; 2) at high knee flexion angles, ACL is exposed together with the hamstrings to high tension forces. Therefore, this work confirms that the ability of the hamstrings to generate high forces is of key importance for preserving the integrity of the ACL in critical knee configurations. © 2022 IEEE.