Human joint performance and the roughness of articular cartilage.

It is known that the surface of articular cartilage is rough and it has been suggested that this is likely to affect the lubrication of human joints. This paper describes the direct measurement of a cartilage surface with a stylus instrument. It is found that the height distribution is Gaussian with an inverse-square power spectrum. It is thus possible to calculate the elastic deflection of the surface under normal walking loads and it is shown that the mean separation of the cartilage surfaces in a human joint varies rather slowly with load. In one particular hip joint at heel strike the real area of contact was calculated to be about 1.3 cm2, the mean gap to be about 60 micrometers and the trapped volume to be about 80 percent of that when standing.