Department of Ceramics and Refractory Materials, RWTH Aachen University, Mauerstrasse 5, 52064 Aachen, Germany.
J Mater Sci Mater Med. 2010 Nov;21(11):3049-57. doi: 10.1007/s10856-010-4144-z. Epub 2010 Aug 20.
Although ceramic prostheses have been successfully used in conventional total hip arthroplasty (THA) for many decades, ceramic materials have not yet been applied for hip resurfacing (HR) surgeries. The objective of this study is to investigate the mechanical reliability of silicon nitride as a new ceramic material in HR prostheses. A finite element analysis (FEA) was performed to study the effects of two different designs of prostheses on the stress distribution in the femur-neck area. A metallic (cobalt-chromium-alloy) Birmingham hip resurfacing (BHR) prosthesis and our newly designed ceramic (silicon nitride) HR prosthesis were hereby compared. The stresses induced by physiologically loading the femur bone with an implant were calculated and compared with the corresponding stresses for the healthy, intact femur bone. Here, we found stress distributions in the femur bone with the implanted silicon nitride HR prosthesis which were similar to those of healthy, intact femur bone. The lifetime predictions showed that silicon nitride is indeed mechanically reliable and, thus, is ideal for HR prostheses. Moreover, we conclude that the FEA and corresponded post-processing can help us to evaluate a new ceramic material and a specific new implant design with respect to the mechanical reliability before clinical application.
虽然陶瓷假体已成功应用于传统的全髋关节置换术（THA）数十年，但陶瓷材料尚未应用于髋关节表面置换术（HR）手术。本研究的目的是研究氮化硅作为一种新型陶瓷材料在 HR 假体中的机械可靠性。进行了有限元分析（FEA），以研究两种不同假体设计对股骨颈区域应力分布的影响。比较了一种金属（钴铬合金）Birmingham 髋关节表面置换（BHR）假体和我们新设计的陶瓷（氮化硅）HR 假体。计算了用植入物生理性加载股骨骨时引起的应力，并与健康完整股骨的相应应力进行了比较。在这里，我们发现植入氮化硅 HR 假体后的股骨中的应力分布与健康完整股骨相似。寿命预测表明，氮化硅确实具有机械可靠性，因此非常适合 HR 假体。此外，我们得出结论，FEA 和相应的后处理可以帮助我们在临床应用之前评估新型陶瓷材料和特定的新型植入物设计的机械可靠性。
