Biotribology
Biotribology research studies the properties and development of prosthetic joints.
The wear of prosthetic joints, especially total hip and knee prostheses, is a significant clinical problem. The wear products of implants cause adverse tissue reactions, which may lead to substantial loss of bone around the implant and consequently the loosening of the fixation. This requires a revision operation, in which the loose implant is replaced with a revision prosthesis. However, revision operations are complicated and expensive, and their results are often poor.
Research aims to improve the tribological evaluation methods for prosthetic joints and their materials. Two examples of this activity are the design, building and validation of the 12-station anatomic hip joint simulator HUT-4 and the 100-station pin-on-disk hip wear simulator Super-CTPOD. These two simulators are now commercially available from Phoenix Tribology Ltd (TE 86 and TE 87).
The latest additions to the selection of test devices are RandomPOD, a 16-station, computer-controlled, servo-electric pin-on-disk wear simulator that can be programmed to produce virtually any type of motion and load, even random; and HF-CTPOD, a 3-station, dual motion pin-on-disk device for accelerated wear testing.
The study of tribology (friction, wear and lubrication) of orthopaedic biomaterials started in the Laboratory of Machine Design in 1987. The principal source of funding has been the Academy of Finland. In addition, contract studies have been conducted for the orthopaedic industry and for the National Agency for Medicines.
Personnel: Senior Scientist Vesa Saikko