Title: Long-term wear prediction of zirconia on alumina ceramic for hip prosthesis

Authors: S. Shankar; R. Nithyaprakash; A.P. Sugunesh; M.S. Uddin

Addresses: Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India ' School of Engineering, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia

Abstract: This paper aims to predict wear of hard zirconia-on-hard alumina ceramic hip bearing couple for 20 years of lifetime by considering a realistic wear coefficient. Past studies in hip wear prediction have considered a fixed wear coefficient determined for a shorter sliding distance and used this for long-term wear prediction. In this study, pin-on-disc test between the zirconia and alumina bearing materials for a sliding distance of 60 km has been conducted in a dry and lubrication condition to determine friction and wear coefficient for initial 'running-in' and subsequent steady-states. Finite element method has been employed to compute cumulative linear and volumetric wear of implant for 20 million cycles using the calculated wear coefficient values. Wear prediction showed lesser cumulative linear and volumetric wear for steady state wear coefficient when compared with running-in wear coefficient.

Keywords: alumina; zirconia; wear coefficient; hip prosthesis; FEM; wear.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSURFSE.2020.110534

International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering, 2020 Vol.14 No.3, pp.192 - 206

Received: 19 Nov 2019
Accepted: 08 Jan 2020
Published online: 23 Oct 2020 *

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