Biomechanical Wear Tests in a Novel Hip Joint Simulator

Abstract

The work in this paper involves the study of the biomechanical wear tests and joint kinematics analysis. Such analyses are very useful to investigate the mobility and natural functionality as well as the motion variation due to replacement implant. The simulator can be used in implant design. The simulator is developed to provide rotation of mobility with the intention of using it for different joints loaded under body activities. Modeling the human joint as rotation is a challenge because of the complexity of linking the motion drivers of the simulator with the constrained joint motion of the joint to be simulated which inevitably involves constraining of simulator motion. In this study, a joint simulation platform has been developed. Microcontroller, relay module, DC motor and power regulators are used in building the platform. The motion of the bottom plate of a joint simulation platform is controlled by a rotational axes control system connected to one actuator independently. The actuator is used to obtain the required load and displacement.

This work is performed to study the mobility, wear and load analysis of the artificial hip joint. The presented platform can be used for joint simulation, implant testing, joint kinematics, laxity analysis, load transmission. The proposed simulator has been tested for validation of the human hip implant insert. The worn surfaces were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It is shown that the wear rates obtained in this work are closer to clinical studies than to similar hip joints simulator studies.