The thermal expansion caused by the growth of ice crystals is the main reason for low-temperature fracture of articular cartilage. With non-isothermal DSC method，this article investigated the thermodynamics and crystallization kinetics parameters of the pig cartilage.The results for four kinds of cryoprotectants were analyzed by the modified Avrami kinetic equations. It shows that the crystallization peak of the cartilage becomes wider with increasing cooling rate which lead to an incomplete crystallization; freezing from 0 ℃ to ﹣60 ℃，the value of Avrami is 4.156 when only 4.5 mol/L 1

2 - propanedio is added. The crystallization would exhibit three - dimensional spherical growth on heterogeneous nuclei and contribute best protective effect compared to other cryoprotectants. While different effects of cooling rate on crystallization and thermal expansion also suggest that low temperature injury is not only determined by the growth of ice crystals，but also affected by the buffering of extracellular matrix.