Fatigue Design Space for Porous Titanium Alloy Femoral Stems: Computational Approach

Abstract

The objective of this study is to develop a design space for selecting porous titanium alloy femoral stems with different stiffnesses for fatigue applications. Finite element models of stems incorporating porous structure are constructed to provide different stem stiffness. The effective material properties obtained from compression tests of these porous structures are used to model simplified femoral solid stems with porosities of ranging from 20 – 90%. By using appreciate fatigue failure criterion, a fatigue design space is determined with factor of safety Nf >1.1. The developed design space provides designers means to design safe porous stems.