About this talk
Total Hip Replacement (THR) is generally a highly successful treatment for joint diseases, however, wear continuous to be one of the major causes of THR’s failure. Hip replacements typically experience a two-stage wear; a higher initial wear rate in the beginning followed by a lower steady-state one with the surface profile changed. This alludes to the potential use of a cup with a non-spherical interior cavity with an initial geometry similar to a worn surface which may benefit from lower wear rate. In this paper wear is numerically simulated with a cup having a non-spherical geometry inspired by that generated by the initial stage of wear. Predicted total wear volume are compared between the spherical cup and the “pre-worn” cup, when loaded with the hip simulator gait cycle. Approximately 25% reduction in the steady-state wear rate is observed in the pre-worn hip joint.