Characterization of Wear in Composite Material Orthopaedic Implants

Carbon fiber/PEEK polymer (C/PEEK) composite materials are being developed for use as orthopaedic implant materials, Wear is an issue of increasing importance in orthopaedic implants; particulate debris generated by the wearing of biomaterials may be a causal factor leading to osteolysis and implant loosening, Therefore, numerical and ellperimental studies were completed to characterize the wear of C/PEEK composite materials in comparison to current orthopaedic implant materials.

Finite element analyses (FEA) of a composite material hip stem implanted in a femur and loaded at 890 N determined that peak contact stresses will occur at the proximal-medial and distal regions of the implant. These contact stresses were found to be below 1.0 MPa over most of the implant surface; however the peak stress in the proximal-medial region was 1.8 MPa and higher still at the distal portion of the stem, In vivo forces result in contact stress values up to 9.0 MPa, The composite implant exhibited 10–40% lower contact stresses in the distal region compared to a titanium-alloy implant of identical design.

Composite material wear samples were slid against porous hydroxylapatite (HA) to simulate the stem/bone interface. An identical series of experiments was run for comparison to a current orthopaedic implant material—Ti6Al4V titanium alloy. Two domains of motion were studied; a composite ring-on-HA disc large amplitude sliding wear test; and a composite pin-on-HA disc small amplitude fretting regimen. Nominal contact pressures during testing were 1.4 MPa and 7.6 MPa for sliding and fretting tests, respectively. Fretting and sliding abrasive wear tests resulted in the composite material exhibiting a lower wear rate than the titanium-alloy. The magnitude of the difference was greatly dependent on the contact pressures, sliding amplitudes, and counterface material properties.