The Effect of Texture Floor Profile on the Lubricant Film Thickness in a Textured Hard-On-Soft Bearing With Relevance to Prosthetic Hip Implants

Abstract

Abstract Polyethylene wear debris limits the longevity of prosthetic hip implants. We design a pattern of axisymmetric texture features to increase hydrodynamic pressure and lubricant film thickness and, thus, reduce solid-on-solid contact, friction, and wear in hard-on-soft prosthetic hip implant bearings. Specifically, we study the effect of the texture floor profile on the lubricant film thickness using a soft elastohydrodynamic lubrication model. We compute the optimum texture parameters that maximize the lubricant film thickness for different texture floor profiles, as a function of bearing operating conditions. Flat texture floor profiles create thicker lubricant films than sloped or curved texture floor profiles for their respective optimum texture design parameters. We find that the texture feature volume is the most important parameter in terms of maximizing the lubricant film thickness, because a linear relationship exists between the texture feature volume with optimum texture parameters and the corresponding optimum lubricant film thickness, independent of the texture floor profile.