The extension to three dimensions of a two-dimensional geometrical model of the human knee cruciate ligaments is presented in this paper. As a first approximation, the ligament attachment areas on the bones are taken to be elliptical in scrape and a mapping of ligament fibres from tibia to femur is specified. Methods for calculating and illustrating ligament shape changes and fibre length changes are described, and examples of the model calculations for the knee movements of passive flexion and anterior tibial translation are given. Analysis of the results reveals that the proposed, simple extension of the two-dimensional ligament model to three dimensions is partly satisfactory for the anterior cruciate ligament, but inadequate for the posterior cruciate ligament.
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