The feasibility study of the real-time evaluating the total hip replacement (THR) by using acoustic emission

Abstract

The total hip replacement (THR) is a procedure involved removing the damaged bone and cartilage and replacing with prosthetic components, which is one of the most common and successful surgeries. However, clinic examination and medical imaging methods are the main and only efforts to evaluate the status of THR, which is time-consuming and costly. Therefore, to develop a rapid and real-time evaluation of THR is meaningful and promising. Acoustic emission (AE) is a non-invasive and non-destructive evaluation (NDE) method, which is also accurate, reliable and real-time. The use of AE to assess damage after THR can be feasible. Firstly, using silicone material to simulate in the hip in the axial and radial force, ultrasonic wave propagation characteristics in silicone to do exploratory tests. Secondly, this study proposed to introduce the AE to evaluate the status of prosthetic components. The feasibility of adapting AE has been discussed based on numerical model. As the first step, the behavior of elastic wave propagation is the main concern. A model of the biolayer between the in-vitro sensor and the hip was built through COMSOL Multiphysics. The parametric study was conducted with consideration of the influence of frequencies of elastic wave, human action and bio-layer thickness on AE signal propagation. The results show the attenuation of the AE signal with the increase of frequency, the AE source position and the change of bio-layer thickness. The study can provide the basic understanding of elastic wave propagation due to different human action and status of the prosthetic components, which is beneficial for further design of in-vitro device in addition to the clinic examination.