Research and development of alumina and zirconia artificial hip joint.
The object of the experiments was to discover the static and dynamic load-carrying capacity of a prosthetic system consisting of a titanium allow stem, zirconia ceramic ball head and UHMWPE (ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene) socket molded in the ceramic shell, the latter two were both of 22 mm in diameter.  The components of the artificial hip joint were placed in a vertical position and load was applied, alternating between 0 and 10 kN and then 12 kN with a frequency of 30 Hz under Ringer's solution up to 10 7 cycles respectively.  After 2 x 10 7 cycles there was no sign of damage to be observed among the system tested using the joint simulator.  This seems to be a very high safety factor compared with loads occurring in vivo.
Tateishi
T
T
Biomechanics Division, Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, MITI, Ibaraki, Japan.
Yunoki
H
H
D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006622:Hip Prosthesis / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006801:Humans; D008422:Materials Testing; D011095:Polyethylenes; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D013718:Tensile Strength; D014025:Titanium; D015040:Zirconium