Wear prediction on silicon nitride bearing couple in human hip prosthesis using finite element concepts

Abstract

Wear is one of the important tribological parameter that increases the revision rate of artificial hip implantation. Silicon nitride (Si3N4) is one of the promising ceramic materials with low wear rate and has been implanted in patients for the past 3 years. The objective of this paper is to analyse the effect of radial clearance over the contact pressure and wear of Si3N4 bearing couple, i.e. acetabulam cup and femoral head, using finite element concepts. The 3D force values for normal walking cycle of hip joint are used to predict the contact pressure and 3D rotation angles are used to calculate the sliding distance in determining the wear of bearing couple. The finite element results are validated initially with the previous experimental results. Then the analysis is extended to various radial clearance values. The increase in radial clearance values resulted in increase in linear wear but there is not much change in the volumetric wear.

Minimizing Risk of Failure from Ceramic-on-Ceramic Total Hip Prosthesis by Selecting Ceramic Materials Based on Tresca Stress

“…The coefficient of friction is obtained from a hip joint simulator or a pin-on-disc test [30,34,35]. In the current computational simulation, the values for the coefficient of friction are adopted from published works: ZrO 2 -on-ZrO 2 from Ruggiero et al [36], Si 3 N 4 -on-Si 3 N 4 from Shankar and Nithyaprakash [37], and Al 2 O 3 -on-Al 2 O 3 from Shankar et al [32]. These are shown in Table 3.…”

Silicon Nitride Bearings for Total Joint Arthroplasty

“…Enhanced bearing longevity can be expected provided an adherent defect free coating is achieved; and the elastic moduli of the substrate and coating are reasonably matched [148]. From another perspective, rigorous mechanical models (as well as market trends) suggest the use of dissimilar bearing materials in lieu of hard-on-hard devices (i.e., CoP vs. CoC) [149][150][151]. Due to differences in chemical affinities, elastic moduli, and hardness, Si 3 N 4 -on-XLPE bearings should not experience the same slip-stick behavior that was observed in the Si 3 N 4 -on-Si 3 N 4 couples, although additional simulator testing needs to confirm this supposition.…”

Investigation on rotary ultrasonic assisted end grinding of silicon nitride ceramics

“…This ceramic material has high bond strength, good thermal shock stability (by cause of its small thermal expansion coefficient), good oxidation resistance (compared with other high temperature ceramic materials) and high failure toughness together with high strength in high temperatures. This material (Si 3 N 4 ) can withstand mechanical and electrical stresses [2]. In recent decades, ceramics based on SiC and Si 3 N 4 are employed as base materials in gas turbines, car engines, industrial, energy systems, cutting and welding tools, wiring and extrusion processes, wear-resistant parts, bearings and other engineering applications, which are owing to exceptional properties.…”