Fig 1.
Mean (lines) and standard deviation (shaded region) medial, lateral, and total tibiofemoral contact forces for the unloaded, 15 kg, and 30 kg load conditions normalized to a gait cycle.
Data for all loads were aggregated for walking speed. Arrows indicate significant increases in peak contact force with increasing load.
Fig 2.
Mean ± 95% confidence intervals of peak tibiofemoral contact forces normalized to body weight (BW) and compared across the different armor types during fast walking while carrying 30 kg of load.
Fig 3.
Mean ± SD contribution of muscles to medial (top row) and lateral (bottom row) compartment tibiofemoral contact force for the no load (solid light blue line), 15 kg (dashed red line), and 30 kg (dotted green line) conditions during moderate (first column) and fast (second column) walking.
Table 1.
Main effects of armor type for medial, lateral, and total tibiofemoral contact forces normalized to body weight (BW).
Table 2.
Mean ± SD percent contribution (%) of all knee-spanning muscles, external load, and quadriceps muscles to medial and lateral compartment tibiofemoral contact force in the stance phase of gait.
All data values have been aggregated for the different load and speed conditions.
Fig 4.
Plots of knee flexion angle versus medial (top) and lateral (bottom) compartment tibiofemoral contact forces across the different load conditions. Both plots have been annotated with time-series plots of knee flexion angle and corresponding tibiofemoral contact forces with peak contact force timing circled red.