Tribological characterization of a hip prosthesis in Si3N4-TiN ceramic composite made with Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM)

A New Approach for the Tribological and Mechanical Characterization of a Hip Prosthesis Trough a Numerical Model Based on Artificial Intelligence Algorithms and Humanoid Multibody Model

“…At the end of the simulations, it was observed that the best wear behavior was demonstrated by the CoCr alloy/UHMWPE coupling, with its volume loss due to wear being 0.004 µm 3 at the end of the sitting cycles. The results have been also compared with the literature studied [5,6,9,10,20,29] and show a good agreement with them. After the best pairs in terms of wear were established, a topology optimization of the whole hip implant structure was performed.…”

“…Moreover, in order to guarantee a longer life cycle of the prostheses and an appropriate lubrication, the application of nanostructured coatings and surface processing was studied [14][15][16][17], such as the surface laser texturing technique already widely used in other industrial sectors [18,19]. Numerical techniques, such as the Finite Element Method (FEM), have recently been adopted to support experimental studies regarding the calculation of the useful life and the functionality optimization of the prostheses [20]. These techniques support the already developed algorithms based on the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which allow the determination of fundamental parameters, such as the position of the center of mass [21][22][23], and the evaluation of the exact load distribution on the prostheses.…”

“…In this sense, this work represents an evolution because it gives additional information about the wear behavior, which completes the general overview for this materials type. Concerning the ceramic-ceramic coupling (Si3N4-TiN), it was already investigated by the authors [20], but in this work, it adopted a different prosthesis geometry, and the load and rotation conditions were evaluated by a customizable humanoid model and not from gait cycles coming from literature studies [29] like in the previous work. The wear process was investigated through the implementation of the Archard's law [20,[30][31][32] in the FEM and whose characteristic coefficients have been obtained from literature studies [6,20,[33][34][35].…”

“…Concerning the ceramic-ceramic coupling (Si3N4-TiN), it was already investigated by the authors [20], but in this work, it adopted a different prosthesis geometry, and the load and rotation conditions were evaluated by a customizable humanoid model and not from gait cycles coming from literature studies [29] like in the previous work. The wear process was investigated through the implementation of the Archard's law [20,[30][31][32] in the FEM and whose characteristic coefficients have been obtained from literature studies [6,20,[33][34][35]. At the end of the simulations, it was observed that the best wear behavior was demonstrated by the CoCr alloy/UHMWPE coupling, with its volume loss due to wear being 0.004 µm 3 at the end of the sitting cycles.…”

“…The problems of friction and wear in hip prostheses, as well as in other types of mechanical joints, have been studied by many authors [7,8] to quantify the effects on the quality, reliability, and durability of the prostheses. Shankar et al [9] investigated the tribological behavior of zirconia toughened alumina (ZTA) against titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V), using ball-on-disc tribometer with four loading conditions (15,20,25…”