Wear-corrosion synergism under fretting and sliding contacts in hip prosthesis
Résumé
The synergistic interaction of wear and corrosion at the various interfaces of a metal-on-metal hip prosthesis is little understood. Fretting-corrosion at stem-cement interface and sliding wear-corrosion at the articulating surfaces of ball and cup are two areas of concern. Sliding wear is characterized by relative displacements exceeding the dimensions of contact. During fretting, motion amplitudes are smaller than the contact area. Here, we report the results from two laboratories at two different prosthetic locations applying the same theoretic concept to disentangle the contribution of wear, corrosion and their synergistic interaction at the stem-cement and ball-cup interface. We hypothesized that the synergistic component of wear and corrosion will be higher for fretting than sliding. .