A novel tribological study on DLC-coated micro-dimpled orthopedics implant interface. (May 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Choudhury, Dipankar; Urban, Filip; Vrbka, Martin; Hartl, Martin; Krupka, Ivan
• Is Part Of: Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials. Volume 45(2015)
• Page Start: 121
• Page End: 131
• Publication Date: 2015-05
• Subjects: Hip joint prosthesis -- Friction coefficient -- Wear debris -- Diamond like carbon -- Micro dimple; Biomedical materials -- Periodicals; Biomedical materials -- Mechanical properties -- Periodicals; Biomedical materials; Biomedical materials -- Mechanical properties; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 610.28
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmbbm.2014.11.028
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1751-6161

Abstract

Abstract: This study investigates a tribological performance of diamond like carbon (DLC) coated micro dimpled prosthesis heads against ceramic cups in a novel pendulum hip joint simulator. The simulator enables determining friction coefficient and viscous effects of a concave shaped specimen interface (conformal contact). Two types of DLC such as hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) and tetrahedral amorphous carbon (Ta-C) and one set of micro dimple (diameter of 300 µm, depth of 70 µm, and pitch of 900 µm) were fabricated on metallic prosthesis heads. The experiment results reveal a significant friction coefficient reduction to the 'dimpled a-C:H/ceramic' prosthesis compared to a 'Metal (CoCr)/ceramic' prosthesis because of their improved material and surface properties and viscous effect. The post-experiment surface analysis displays that the dimpled a-C:H yielded a minor change in the surface roughness, and generated a larger sizes of wear debris (40–200 nm sized, equivalent diameter), a size which could be certainly stored in the dimple, thus likely to reducing their possible third body abrasive wear rate. Thus, dimpled a:C–H can be used as a 'metal on ceramic hip joint interface', whereas the simulator can be utilized as an advanced bio-tribometer.