Design and development of a simplified wear simulator for total knee replacement (TKR) based on pin-disc machine

Abstract

The failure of polyethylene inserts in the prostheses of diverse members is the main cause for total replacement of the articulation. In this study, the most influential conditions for the different types of failures for a total knee replacement (TKR) causing the main wear or rupture were analyzed. Mexico, little research has been done on total knee prostheses (Rodríguez in Int J Phys Sci 7(43): 5779–5786, 2012, [1]), this being one of the main problems of national health. In the previous publications a few studies were conducted concerning the gait cycle in Mexican patients were made. One of the cases involved the TKR Scorpio™ II Stryker™ (Rodríguez in Revista Colombiana de Biotecnología XV(1): 28–41, 2013, [2]) where axial and shear stresses have been analyzed and the way this functions in the gait cycle considering this type of prosthesis (Rodríguez in Revista Colombiana de Biotecnología XV(1): 28–41, 2013, [2]). Due to the scarce resources with which it had to operate, the design of the components of the machine had to be improvised or modified, which is quite useful in two different cases. In present case, a hybrid-machine was developed, adapting new mechanical components on the pin-disk machine modified. The results of effects the wear of UHMWPE inserts are not involved in this research, only those related to the design and adaptation of the new components to the wear of the pin-disc machine are presented as results of this work.