Fig. 1

A suture loop (a) separates a collagen bundle with a cross section of 0.5 mm². The collagen bundle was channeled through a plate with an elongated hole that the meniscus was pulled against thereby loading the collagen bundle only. A novel test device shown in (b) and (c) was constructed to mimic physiological load distribution on menisci, which are still attached to the tibial bone. Hemispheres were chosen according to the meniscus’ size and pulled down for load application. d shows a meniscus still attached to a bone block. The distance between the inner meniscal vertex and the bone block is referred to as L₀. The width of the bone block is 12 mm. e Equal anterior (h_a) and posterior (h_b) heights of the bone block were ensured during the preparation process