Title: Dynamic contact analysis of total hip prosthesis during normal active walking cycle

Authors: S. Shankar; M. Manikandan; M. Kalayarasan

Addresses: Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kongu Engineering College, Erode 638052, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nandha Engineering College, Erode 638052, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG College Technology, Coimbatore 641004, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: The lifetime of the hip prosthesis is highly connected with the contact mechanism that occurs at the interface of the acetabular cup and femoral head. A three-dimensional acetabular component model is modelled to investigate the contact consequences for the different possible material combinations during the normal dynamic walking cycle. The different bearing couples considered for the analysis are metal in contact with plastic, metal on metal, metal on ceramic, ceramic on plastic, ceramic on metal and ceramic on ceramic combinations. The result reveals that the ceramic in contact with plastic i.e. alumina femoral head paired with Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene cup reduces the maximum von Mises stress and maximum contact pressure developed between the contacting interface when compared with other combinations. The finite element results are validated with the results of Jiang et al., and it is found to be high correlation of about 95% between the two results.

Keywords: total hip prosthesis; dynamic walking cycle; material combinations; acetabulam; UHMWPE cup; contact analysis; acetabular cup; femoral head; 3D modelling; bearing couples; metals; ceramics; plastics; alumina femoral head; ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene; von Mises stress; contact pressure; finite element analysis; FEA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2014.062742

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2014 Vol.15 No.2, pp.114 - 127

Received: 13 Jan 2014
Accepted: 11 May 2014

Published online: 21 Oct 2014 *

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