Investigation of the friction properties of a new artificial imitation cartilage material: PHEMA/glycerol gel

Tools

Hua, Z, Hu, M, Chen, Y, Huang, X and Gao, L ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3738-3573, 2024. Investigation of the friction properties of a new artificial imitation cartilage material: PHEMA/glycerol gel. Materials, 16 (11): 4023. ISSN 1996-1944

Preview

Text
1898014_Gao.pdf - Published version
Download (11MB) | Preview

Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16114023

Abstract

The absence of artificial articular cartilage could cause the failure of artificial joints due to excessive material wear. There has been limited research on alternative materials for articular cartilage in joint prostheses, with few reducing the friction coefficient of artificial cartilage prostheses to the range of the natural cartilage friction coefficient (0.001–0.03). This work aimed to obtain and characterize mechanically and tribologically a new gel for potential application in articular replacement. Therefore, poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA)/glycerol synthetic gel was developed as a new type of artificial joint cartilage with a low friction coefficient, especially in calf serum. This glycerol material was developed via mixing HEMA and glycerin at a mass ratio of 1:1. The mechanical properties were studied, and it was found that the hardness of the synthetic gel was close to that of natural cartilage. The tribological performance of the synthetic gel was investigated using a reciprocating ball-on-plate rig. The ball samples were made of a cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (Co-Cr-Mo) alloy, and the plates were synthetic glycerol gel and two additional materials for comparison, which were ultra-high molecular polyethylene (UHMWPE) and 316L stainless steel. It was found that synthetic gel exhibited the lowest friction coefficient in both calf serum (0.018) and deionized water (0.039) compared to the other two conventional materials for knee prostheses. The surface roughness of the gel was found to be 4–5 μm through morphological analysis of wear. This newly proposed material provided a possible solution as a type of cartilage composite coating with hardness and tribological performance close to the nature of use in wear couples with artificial joints.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Materials
Creators:	Hua, Z., Hu, M., Chen, Y., Huang, X. and Gao, L.
Publisher:	MDPI
Date:	28 May 2024
Volume:	16
Number:	11
ISSN:	1996-1944
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3390/ma16114023 DOI 1898014 Other
Rights:	© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	13 Jun 2024 15:00
Last Modified:	13 Jun 2024 15:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/51563