Behavior of the intervertebral disc subjected to physiological couples

The presented work reports the various stress and displacements observed within a total intervertebral disc of cervical level C5/C6, and this was under the action of a compressive load of 1,5 kN, as well as sagittal, lateral and axial moments. We showed the importance of the nucleus pulposus, from its fundamental properties to absorb the shocks and to absorb the major part of the deformations. Through the obtained results of simulation, we can affirm that the effects of the sagittal moment are most dangerous, relatively to the axial and lateral moments. This observation is dictated by the intensity as by the nonlinear behavior increasing in a quadratic form, from a certain inclination angle which can lead to a rupture of the cervical rachis on one hand, and to a degenerative reorganisation of the disc leading thus to the cervicathrose on the other hand.