Prediction of Wear in Crosslinked Polyethylene Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty

Abstract

Wear-related complications remain a major issue after unicompartmental arthroplasty. We used a computational model to predict knee wear generated in vitro under diverse conditions. Inverse finite element analysis of 2 different total knee arthroplasty designs was used to determine wear factors of standard and highly crosslinked polyethylene by matching predicted wear rates to measured wear rates. The computed wear factor was used to predict wear in unicompartmental components. The articular surface design and kinematic conditions of the unicompartmental and tricompartmental designs were different. Predicted wear rate (1.77 mg/million cycles) was very close to experimental wear rate (1.84 mg/million cycles) after testing in an AMTI knee wear simulator. Finite element analysis can predict experimental wear and may reduce the cost and time of preclinical testing.

Prediction of Wear on Tibial Inserts Made of UHMWPE, PEEK, and CFR-PEEK in Total Knee Arthroplasty Using Finite-Element Analysis

“…The predicted contact pressure was found to be dependent on both the mesh density and modeling type between a rigid and deformable body. To accurately predict the wear, the geometry was modified with a smaller period than the previously validated computational wear, which showed the reliability of our results [26,42,44].…”

“…The general computational wear models are based on Archard's wear law with arbitrary wear factors to match the experimental wear from the simulator machine. The disadvantage of Archard's equation for predicting wear in TKA is that it does not consider changes in the sliding direction and the resultant wear increase [41,42]. Additionally, delamination, pitting, and third-body wear are not considered; however, previous studies showed that these effects are negligible for a tibial insert.…”

Effect of Polyethylene Crosslinking and Bearing Design on Wear of Unicompartmental Arthroplasty

“…Our approach for predicting wear was validated using experimental results from previous studies [11][12][13]. Briefly, gravimetric wear rates were obtained from two experimental studies of low crosslinked polyethylene (Sigma Curved TKA, DePuy, Warsaw, IN) and highly crosslinked polyethylene (Triathlon TKA X3, Stryker, Mahwah, NJ).…”

Computational biomechanics of knee joint arthroplasty : a review

“…where H is the linear wear depth, Kw is an experimentally determined wear factor, p is the contact pressure, and S is the sliding distance. Netter et al examined two design rationales for UKA: fully congruent mobile bearings, and moderately conforming fixed bearings, using experimental and computational wear simulation (Flores-Hernandez et al, 2015;Netter et al, 2015). Their study showed that increasing conformity may not be the sole predictor of wear performance, and that a highly crosslinked fixed-bearing PE insert can also provide high wear performance (Flores-Hernandez, Netter, Hermida, Steklov, Kester and D. D'Lima, 2015;Netter, Hermida, D'Alessio, Kester and D'Lima, 2015).…”

“…Netter et al examined two design rationales for UKA: fully congruent mobile bearings, and moderately conforming fixed bearings, using experimental and computational wear simulation (Flores-Hernandez et al, 2015;Netter et al, 2015). Their study showed that increasing conformity may not be the sole predictor of wear performance, and that a highly crosslinked fixed-bearing PE insert can also provide high wear performance (Flores-Hernandez, Netter, Hermida, Steklov, Kester and D. D'Lima, 2015;Netter, Hermida, D'Alessio, Kester and D'Lima, 2015). Kang et al evaluated the weight loss, wear depth, and kinematics for different surface properties, including nanostructured diamond (NSD), diamond-like carbon (DLC), titanium-nitride (TiN), and oxidized zirconium (OxZr), on femoral components in TKA using FE analysis under gait-cycle loading conditions (Kang et al, 2017c).…”