A new design concept for artificial knee joint was proposed based on fatigue properites of UHMWPE. Delamination is caused by fatigue of the polyethylene accelerated by some physical and chemical factor. In this study, the delamination was reproduced using sliding fatigue testing machine and an influence of loading condition on the crack formation was examined. The subsurface cracks were observed by scanning acoustic tomography(SAT). The results showed that the fatigue process was accelerated by complicated sliding motion. It was suggested that simplified articulating movement would be one possible solutions to prevent the flaking-like destruction of UHMWPE knee components. A new knee prosthesis was designed based on this concept.
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