title: Thin hard crest on the edge of ceramic acetabular liners accelerates wear in edge loading.
abstract: Ceramic acetabular liners may exhibit a small, sharp crest-an artifact of discontinuous machining steps--at the junction between the concave spherical surface and the interior edge. On 3 ceramic liners, this crest was found to form a 9° to 11° deviation from tangency. Edge loading wear tests were conducted directly on this crest and on a smoother region of the edge. The crest elicited 2 to 15 times greater volumetric wear on the femoral head. The propensity of the crest to rapidly (<2000 wear cycles) cause elevated wear under low contact force (200 N) suggests that the crest artifact of prevailing machining protocols might be a root cause of stripe wear and squeaking in ceramic acetabular bearings.
authors: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA.
authors: Anthony P
authors: AP
authors: Sanders
authors: Parth J
authors: PJ
authors: Dudhiya
authors: Rebecca M
authors: RM
authors: Brannon
mesh_terms: D000077:Acetabulum; D002516:Ceramics; D006622:Hip Prosthesis; D008422:Materials Testing; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D011475:Prosthesis Failure; D013499:Surface Properties; D013997:Time Factors