Ratcheting behavior of articular cartilage under cyclic unconfined compression.

The ratcheting deformation of articular cartilage can produce due to the repeated accumulations of compressive strain in cartilage. The aim of this study was to investigate the ratcheting behavior of articular cartilage under cyclic compression. A series of uniaxial cyclic compression tests were conducted for online soaked and unsoaked cartilage samples and the effects of stress variation and stress rate on ratcheting behavior of cartilage were investigated.