Friction and Wear Testing of Joint Implant Ma...

Friction and Wear Testing of Joint Implant Material using AMTI Ortho-Pod

Author Name : Dr. Sadiq Jafar Abass, Mahmood Hameed Majeed

The goals of this study are to determine the effect of different loads and different wear path on the wear and friction of most commonly used implant material ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene, also to compare wear and friction of UHMWPE with other materials (peek and Acetal copolymer). The study was conducted in the biomedical engineering department lab of AL-Nahrain university in Baghdad. Six test groups, each consisting of six pin samples of the same materials articulated against six 316 stainless steel disks by using AMTI Ortho-Pod pin on disk under dry condition. During testing, friction was determined using 6-DOF load cells. For wear assessment, pins were cleaned and then weighed using a high-precision balance. On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that circular path has a higher mean coefficient of frictions and specific wear rate than a square path. Increasing loads caused decreases in mean coefficient of frictions, increases weight loss, but decreases in specific wear rate. UHMWPE has a lower mean coefficient of frictions and specific wear rate than both PEEK and Acetal copolymer. PEEK has a lower mean coefficient of frictions than Acetal, but it has a higher specific wear rate.