Abstract
The impact of femoral head surface roughness on wear of γ-irradiation sterilized (3 MRad in nitrogen, crosslinked) and nonsterilized (not crosslinked) UHMWPE acetabular cups has been evaluated. Gravimetric wear testing was performed in a hip joint simulator for 2 × 106 cycles. CoCrMo heads were used with different surface roughness (Ra = 15 nm and Ra = 400 nm). The surface roughness after wear test was unchanged for the roughened heads, whereas the initially smooth heads showed a few scratches. The roughened heads increased the wear of the acetabular cups 2-fold. The γ-irradiated cups tested against rough heads underwent the highest wear. The absorption of water was highest for the γ-irradiated cups (0.0204% compared to 0.0031% after 85 days). Raman spectroscopy showed small but significant crystallinity changes in the wear zone, where the γ-irradiated cups with the most extensive abrasion increased in crystallinity, whereas the nonsterilized cups underwent a crystallinity decrease.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1032-1042 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Biomedical Materials Research - Part A |
Volume | 90 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Sep 15 2009 |
Keywords
- Crystallinity
- Gamma-irradiation
- Raman spectroscopy
- Roughness
- UHMWPE acetabular cups
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biomedical Engineering
- Biomaterials
- Ceramics and Composites
- Metals and Alloys