Progressive failure analysis of a hip joint based on extended finite element method

Abstract

The present work adopted the extended finite element method (XFEM) to predict the progressive failure of an artificially cemented hip joint. The three-dimensional finite element (3DFE) method was employed to simulate the cemented hip joint, which consists of a femoral stem, ball, cup, and fixation agent that secures the pelvis in the cemented hip joint. The progressive failure of the cemented hip joint was investigated under the compression load. Furthermore, the present work attempts to cover the most cemented hip joint crack paths (during adduction/abduction in the coronal plane), which can be caused by the pelvis or femoral stem, and its effect on the failure of cemented hip joint. Moreover, the loosening that may occur in the femoral stem was taken into consideration. The results showed that the XFEM can be used to predict the crack-initiation site and crack path in the artificially cemented hip joint. Furthermore, it was found that the pelvis or femoral stem positions have a significant effect on the stress distribution of the cemented hip joint and that the crack initiated at the acetabular cup spreads to the cemented part.