Polarized Raman analysis of the molecular rearrangement and residual strain on the surface of retrieved polyethylene tibial plates

The response to applied strain of EtO-sterilized and gamma-irradiated polyethylene materials belonging to tibial inserts has been studied by polarized Raman spectroscopy. Initial calibrations on as-received samples from three different makers were employed to clarify the rearrangement of molecular chains under strain, expressed in terms of Euler angular displacements in space and orientation distribution functions. This body of information was then applied to a quantitative analysis of four tibial inserts (from the same three makers of the unused samples) retrieved after in vivo exposures ranging between 7 months and 5 years 8 months. The main results of the Raman analysis can be summarized as follows: (i) gamma-irradiated samples experienced lower texturing on the molecular scale compared to EtO-sterilized samples, likely due to a higher strain recovery capability; and (ii) independent of sterilization method, the amount of plastic strain was mainly developed early after in vivo implantation, whereby out-of-plane molecules rotated under load onto planes parallel to the sample surface until saturation of angular displacements was reached. (C) 2010 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Innovative tribometer for in situ spectroscopic analyses of wear mechanisms and phase transformation in ceramic femoral heads

The literature on tribological assessments of artificial hip joints usually focuses on correlations between joint composition, size, and specific wear rates, but conspicuously ignores the physical aspects behind the occurrence of degradation mechanisms of friction and wear. Surface degradation in artificial joints occurs because of increases in temperature and local exacerbation of contact stresses inside the moving contact as a consequence of physical and chemical modifications of the sliding surfaces. This article reports about the development of a new pin-on-ball spectroscopy-assisted tribometer device that enables investigating also physical rather than merely engineering aspects of wear processes using in situ Raman and fluorescence techniques. This innovative tribometer is designed to bring about, in addition to conventional tribological parameters, also information of temperature, stress and phase transformations in the femoral heads as received from the manufacturer Raman and fluorescence spectra at the point of sliding contact are recorded durilng reciprocating hard-on-hard dry-sliding tests. Preliminary results were collected on two different commercially available ceramic-on-ceramic hip joint bearing couples, made of monolithic alumina and alumina-zirconia composites. Although the composite couple showed direct evidence of tetragonal-to-monoclinic phase transformation, which enhanced the coefficient of friction, the specific wear rate was significantly lower than that of the monolithic one (i.e., by a factor 2.63 and 4.48 on the pin and head side, respectively). In situ collected data compared to ex situ analyses elucidated the surface degradation processes and clarified the origin for the higher wear resistance of the composite as compared to the monolithic couple. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

In situ measurements of local temperature and contact stress magnitude during wear of ceramic-on-ceramic hip joints

Fluorescence microprobe spectroscopy was applied to in situ assessments of contact stress and local temperature at the contact point of dry-sliding couples during wear tests of two commercially available ceramic-on-ceramic femoral heads. The investigated ceramic hip implants consisted of either monolithic Al2O3 or Al2O3/ZrO2 composite. A specially designed pin-on-ball tribometer was employed, which enabled directly testing the femoral head components as received from the maker without further manipulation. The strong fluorescence emission from Cr3+ impurities contained in Al2O3 served as a responsive sensor for both temperature and stress. Analytical corrections for the averaging effects arising from the finite size of the laser probe were made according to a probe response formalism in which geometrical conditions of the sliding couple were incorporated as boundary conditions. The sample-probe interaction at the contact point was then experimentally calibrated by obtaining probe response functions for the two materials investigated. Based on such theoretical and experimental procedures, deconvolutive computational routines could be set up and the true variations of local temperature and stress at the contact point of the bearing surfaces retrieved from the observed time-dependent broadening and shift of a selected spectral band, respectively. The main result of the in situ investigation was that the monolithic sliding couple showed both significantly lower temperature and lower magnitude of compressive stress at the contact point as compared to the composite one, although the composite couple wore at a significantly lower specific wear rate than the monolithic one. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved