Materials Science and Engineering C 29 (2009) 153158

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Materials Science and Engineering C

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Wear tests in a hip joint simulator of different CoCrMo counterfaces on UHMWPE
V.A. Gonzlez-Mora
a
, M. Hoffmann
a
, R. Stroosnijder
a
, F.J. Gil
b,

a
Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy
b
CREB, Dept. Ciencia de Materiales e Ingeniera Metalrgica, ETSEIB, Universidad Politcnica de Catalua, Av. Diagonal 647, 08028-Barcelona, Spain


A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:
Received 13 January 2008
Received in revised form 27 May 2008
Accepted 4 June 2008
Available online 18 June 2008
Keywords:
CoCrMo
Metals
Wear
Hip joint simulator


1. Introduction
A B S T R A C T

The objective in this work was to study the effect of different material counterfaces on the Ultra High
Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) wear behavior. The materials used as counterfaces were based on
CoCrMo: forged with hand polished and mass nished, CoCrMo coating applied on the forged CoCrMo alloy
obtained by Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD). A hip joint simulator was designed and built for these studies.
The worn surfaces were observed by optical and scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that the
hand polished CoCrMo alloy caused the higher UHMWPE wear of the acetabular cups. The CoCrMo coating
caused the least UHMWPE wear, while the mass nished CoCrMo alloy caused an intermediate UHMWPE
wear. It is shown that the wear rates obtained in this work are closer to clinical studies than to similar hip
joints simulator studies.
2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


resembles exactly those of the hip joint replacements. The acetabular
When the natural joint has to be replacing with articial materials,
there is a change in the tribological situation due to the inability of the
actual materials used to produce an articial permanent lubricating
lm. Therefore, the materials used to articulating components in an
articial joint are always subject to wear. Furthermore, there is no
ideal bearing material currently fulls all the requirement of total joint
replacement design. Nowadays, the penetration rates of the femoral
heads into the acetabular cups are so low that there should not be any
problem associated with the design or functionality of the implant.
However, the wear particles, especially from UHMWPE debris, cause
osteolysis due to a particle-initiated foreign body reaction (leading to
aseptic loosening of the stem or acetabular cup) and nally make a
revision operation necessary [1,2].
Joint simulators were developed for predicting the in vivo wear
rates of total joint replacements by means of laboratory tests. In these
tests the motion, load, lubrication, environment and geometries of the
articulation are more similar to those found clinically than in
screening wear test devices [3,4]. The objective of this work was to
study the effect of different material counterfaces on the UHMWPE
wear behavior by means of a hip joint simulator (HJS).

2. Materials and methods

The HJS used in this study is a three-station machine that operates
with a type of motion termed biaxial rocking motion (BRM). As a
simulator device, the geometric conguration of the components

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: francesc.xavier.gil@upc.edu (F.J. Gil).
0928-4931/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msec.2008.06.006
components (cups) and the femoral components (heads) are mounted
in the so-called anatomical position [13] that is, with the cups sliding
over the heads, as is the case of the natural joint. Fig. 1 shows a
schematic representation of the HJS motion/loading conguration.
In the HJS, a biaxial rocking motion is applied to the femoral heads via
a rotating inclined block (angle of inclination of 23) mounted below
the femoral head. The BRM provides a practical-engineering imple-
mentation of the walking cycle in vitro. The BRM includes exion-
extension and abductionadduction motion, both with a sinusoidal
excursion of 23 but with a phase difference of /2. The excursion of the
abductionadduction motion is four times higher than the true
abductionadduction motion of the human hip joint when walking.
Thus, BRM provides exaggerated walking kinematics. However, the HJS
has been designed to provide a practical imitation of the motions and
loads seen by the hip joint during a typical walking cycle [46].
In the HJS, the motion can be synchronized to physiological loading
proles [710] describing a double-peak load waveform, that results in
a closer reproduction of the true dynamic load of the hip joint when
walking, as performed by Mejia [1], Wang [5] and Clarke [3]. However,
Saikko [4] has used constant load, hypothesizing that since the BRM is
not a close reproduction of the true situation the load need not be,
either. The constant load applied (1000 N) corresponds to the average
load of the Paul load cycle [2]. The tests in the following described were
also performed under a constant load, based on the results by Saikko
[4], which addressed the possibility that static load in conjunction with
BRM can be sufcient to produce realistic wear simulation for
UHMWPE in hip joint replacements [1114]. Additionally, static or
constant load simplies the wear test device as well as the method. All
the before mentioned studies involving BRM joint simulators have
been proven as a realistic and practical wear test method.
154 V.A. Gonzlez-Mora et al. / Materials Science and Engineering C 29 (2009) 153158

Table 2
Roughness and hardness of each material tested
Material Roughness Ra (m) Hardness (HVN)
Hand polished 0.030.01 67321
Mass nished 0.050.01 84062
CoCrMo coating 0.100.01 88428


antibacterial agent. The serum was purchased at Sigma-Aldrich SrI
(Calf serum, bovine donor; product No. C9676). The soak adsorption of
the UHMWPE cups was determined using an additional control cup.
The cleaning and drying of the UHMWPE cups were performed
according to the ASTM 1715 standard. Weighing was carried out with a
Mettler Toledo AT261DeltaRange microbalance with an accuracy of
10 g.
All specimens were observed in an optical microscope Olympus
and a JEOL 6400 scanning electron microscope at an electron beam
voltage of 20 kV. This equipment has a microanalysis EDS.
Acetabular cups made of UHMWPE GUR1020 and previously
sterilized with 25 KGy (2.5 Mrad) gamma radiation were used. The
cups were supplied by SAMO S.p.A. The density was 0.9737 g/cm
3
. The
cups are designed to be used with a metal back component and in
conjunction with 28 mm femoral heads. The articulating counterfaces
were therefore 28 mm femoral heads. Three different femoral head
materials were studied; listed below the standard material in this
study was a hot-forged CoCrMo alloy. Table 1 shows the chemical
composition of this material.
The microhardness was made on the 18 samples obtaining 10
measurements in each sample. A Leitz Miniload 2 instrument was
used applying a 490.3 mN load on a pyramidal diamond indenter. The
surface roughness measurements were made using a prolometer
(Mitutoyo Surftest SV-512; Mitutoyo, IL, USA) with a 5 nm resolution
and assisted with appropriate software (Surfpack, v 3.0, Mitutoyo,
Japan). Before evaluation, a Gaussian lter was used to remove errors
of form and waviness. For each specimen ve different lengths
(sampling length 0.8 mm, and transversing length 2.5 mm) were
analyzed following the ISO/JIS B0601. Ra was used to give a numerical
characterization of the surface roughness. Ra is the arithmetical mean
deviation of the prole and is calculated as the arithmetical mean of
Fig. 1. Motion/loading conguration of the HJS wear test machine.

The tests on the HJS wear machine were performed as follows. The
acetabular cups were mounted on a home-made metal back support
to transmit the load to each of the three stations. The cups were then
pressed against the femoral heads. While the cups remain static, the
heads slide according to the biaxial rocking motion. A constant load of
1000 N (102 kg) per station was applied during the test. The frequency
of the motion was 1.23 Hz (810 ms/cycle) [1820]. In the HJS a cycle is
considered as completion of one rotation of the head. The wear of the
UHMWPE cups was determined by weight loss measurements every
333,333 cycles up to a total test length of 3 million cycles. The test
lubricant was replaced with fresh solution after every weighing stop
and distilled water was added during the test for compensating water
evaporation. Each station has an environmental test chamber made of
a transparent polycarbonate wall. Each chamber was lled with
350 ml of lubricant. As test lubricant, a solution consisting of bovine
serum and distilled water was used with a total protein concentration
of 30 mg/ml. The lubricant includes sodium azide (0.1 mg/l) as


Table 1
Chemical composition of the forged CoCrMo alloy (%)
Element Cr Mo Mn Ni Si Fe C N
Balance 2630 57 max 1 max 1 max 1 max 0.7 max 0.35 max 0.25
the absolute values of the prole deviations from the mean line.
Table 2 the hardness and roughness of each material.
CoCrMo forged (hand polished)
CoCrMo forged (mass nished)


















Fig. 2. Average wear losses of the UHMWPE cups in the HJS wear tests.
V.A. Gonzlez-Mora et al. / Materials Science and Engineering C 29 (2009) 153158 155

Table 3
HJS wear tests: UHMWPE cups wear rates
Wear rate (mm
3
/10
6
cycles) R
2

Hand polished 90 0.998
Mass nished 68 0.993
CoCrMo coating 44 0.998


CoCrMo forged with a CoCrMo coating obtained by means of
Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD). The coating had the same
chemical composition as the substrate. Vapour deposition process
required the creation of material vapour via sputtering and their
subsequent condensation onto a substrate to form the lm. In the
magnetron sputter deposition process was applied a magnetic eld
parallel to the cathode surfaces forms electron traps and restricts the
primary electron motion to the vicinity of the of the cathode. The
magnetic eld strength was around 200 G. Therefore, it can
inuence the plasma electrons but not the ions. The pressure was
130 mPa.
For each articulating counterface material three heads were tested.
A total of 18 wear tests were performed.

3. Results and discussion

The wear of the UHMWPE specimens (cups) in the HJS wear test
method is shown in Fig. 2, where the volumetric wear rates (mm
3
) of
the UHMWPE cups are represented as a function of test duration in
cycles for each the head material. The volumetric wear results are
calculated from the average weight loss of three specimens. The
results after 3 million cycles show a high linearity. However, it is more
interesting to compare the wear rates of the sliding couples than to
compare the volumetric wear after the one million cycles of the wear
test. The wear rate values are calculated from the slope of the linear
regression tting to the volumetric wear data and are presented in
Table 3.
The results presented show that the hand polished CoCrMo alloy
caused the higher UHMWPE wear of the acetabular cups, when tested
with the HJS. The CoCrMo coating caused the least UHMWPE wear,
while the mass nished CoCrMo alloy caused an intermediate
UHMWPE wear.
It is generally considered that the simulator wear tests produce
lower wear rates than prostheses in vivo. The reasons for that have
been widely discussed in different studies [1518]. In Table 4, the
results of this work are compared to those of other hip joint simulator
studies employing similar femoral heads (28 mm CoCrMo alloy),
UHMWPE and serum-based lubricant. The comparison shows that a
higher UHMWPE cup wear is obtained in this work than those found
for other laboratory tests. Furthermore, in Table 5, it is shown that the


Table 4
Hip joint simulator wear tests for 28 mm CoCrMo femoral heads
Study Wear rates (mm
3
/10
6
cycles)
Smith and Unsworth [17] 48.2
51.4
Barbour et al. [19] 41.6
Greer et al. [20] 30
Hamilton et al. [21] 35
McKellop et al. [22] 30
Sanford et al. [23] 22.5
Saikko and Ahlroos [4] 24.5
Smith and Unsworth [24] 51.7
49.2
McKellop et al. [25] 34.3
Park and Mckellop [26] 38.1
AverageSD 3810
Results of this work 44/68/90
Table 5
Clinical wear rates for 28 mm CoCrMo femoral heads
Study Wear rates (mm
3
/10
6
cycles)
Wooson and Murphy [27] 86
Kabo et al. [28] 144
Bankston et al. [29] 31
Callaghan et al. [30] 86
74
68
43
Bankston et al. [31] 31
68
Hop et al. [32] 84
59
48
65
Shaver et al. [33] 47
27
Paul et al. [34] 64
AverageSD 6429
Results of this work 44/68/90


wear rates obtained in this work are closer to clinical studies than to
similar hip joint simulator studies. This suggests that the testing
conditions selected for this work reproduce quite realistically the
UHMWPE wear found in vivo. Specially, the selection of the adequate
lubricant, the protein concentration, additives, are of the maximum
importance and may lead to high variation in the wear results, even if
the tested materials are the same.
Observation of the UHMWPE cups with an optical microscope was
performed after the wear tests. In Fig. 3, the differences between an
UHMWPE cup before and after the wear test can be seen. A cup after
three million cycles is compared to the cup used as control that
represents the surface of the cups before the wear tests. The cups after
began wear tests present a highly polished surface when compared to
the control cup. Note the evident difference in light reection between
them in Fig. 3. The highly polished surface was also present in the
other cups. During the observation of the cups, three main wear zones
were identied, as shown one form the other. This three wear zones
are shown in Fig. 3. The wear zone corresponding to the polar region
of the cup is denominated as polar zone (A). The next regions are
denominated as medial zone (B) and border zone (C). Additionally,
there exist a region where there was no contact between cup and head
which is denominated as non-wear zone (D). Fig. 4, shows the
differences between the wear zone (contact zone) and non-wear zone
(D) on the acetabular cup. Near the rim of the cup the non-wear zone
can be identied by its less light-reectivity, while the wear zone
highly reects the light, proving thus to be a highly polished surface
[3538].













Fig. 3. Photograph of a wear-tested UHMWPE cup (left side) and a control cup (right
side). The wear-tested cup is divided in four zones denominated: A, polar zone; B,
medial zone; C, border zone; and D, non-wear zone.
156 V.A. Gonzlez-Mora et al. / Materials Science and Engineering C 29 (2009) 153158

CoCrMo coated sliding pair, as it has been indicated by weight loss
measurements.
The medial zone (B) is in contrast a region with fewer polished
regions and represents a transition zone between the border and polar
zones. It reects less the light due to bands of the UHMWPE material
which were not removed during the wear process. These bands are
present in almost the whole cup diameter, forming a ring-like band on
the cup. For the UHMWPE/hand polished sliding pair, the bands were
smaller than those found for the UHMWPE/CoCrMo coated sliding pair,
indicating a bigger removal of UHMWPE material caused by the hand
polished heads. The last coincides again with the weight loss results.
Finally the border zone (C), showed scratches directed to the centre
of the cup and a very highly polished appearance, more than in the
polar zone. In this zone, more scratches were found for the cups
sliding against hand polished forged CoCrMo heads.
UHMWPE cups sliding against hand polished forged CoCrMo heads
presents a highly polished surface on the polar zone with multi-
Fig. 4. Detail of the wear (C) and non-wear zones (D) in an UHMWPE cup when tested in
the HJS. On the left image a photograph of the cup rim showing the limit of the wear
zone.

The cups were sectioned after the wear tests for observation. The
results are presented in the Fig. 5 showing the best and the least
sliding couples: UHMWPE against hand polished and CoCrMo coating.
Fig. 5 has shown interesting features of the UHMWPE cups after
three million cycles: The majority of the polar zone (A) showed a very
polished appearance. This is the zone in the cup where the effects of
wear were more pronounced. The main feature of the polar zone is the
multidirectional scratches. Differences can be found for the UHMWPE/
hand polished and UHMWPE/CoCrMo coated sliding pairs. While for
the rst the polar zone appears to be totally free of UHMWPE
remaining material, for the UHMWPE sliding against the CoCrMo
coated heads, isolated islands of UHMWPE material remained after
the three million cycle wear test. The presence of UHMWPE was
determined by EDS microanalysis. This indicates higher wear damage
for the UHMWPE/hand polished sliding pair than for the UHMWPE/
directional scratches, although these cups were somehow prone to
unidirectional scratches. The standard deviation noticed from the
weight loss measurements where noted during the optical observa-
tion, where differences from cup to cup could be appreciated.
UHMWPE cups sliding against CoCrMo coated heads, presented
quantitatively fewer scratches than the cups sliding against hand
polished forged CoCrMo heads. This superior number of scratches on
the worn surfaces indicates a higher roughness of the hand polished
heads compared to the CoCrMo heads, this may be responsible for the
higher UHMWPE wear found for the cups sliding against hand
polished heads. In the polar zone, many multidirectional scratches
were produced and isolated islands of UHMWPE material.
The wear zones were imaged with a SEM to observe the very ne
microstructure remaining after the wear tests. The SEM observation
was focused in the formation of UHMWPE particles that detach from
the worn surface producing wear debris [3941]. Images were
obtained with secondary electrons. The border zones in all cups
have a similar ripple-like microstructure; there is almost no UHMWPE
particle formation in this wear zone. For all the cups observed, the
























Fig. 5. Composition of optical micrographs of a UHMWPE cup after three millions cycles sliding against a hand polished (forged) CoCrMo and CoCrMo coated head. (A) Border zone,
(B) medial zone and (C) polar zone.
V.A. Gonzlez-Mora et al. / Materials Science and Engineering C 29 (2009) 153158 157








































Fig. 6. SEM micrographs of the medial zone in a cup sliding against a hand polished (forged) and coated CoCrMo head at different magnications.

microstructure of the polar zones appeared likely to be ripple-like but
less accentuate than in the border zone. On the other hand, the
UHMWPE particle formation could not be seen.
The medial zones presented the most interesting surface features.
For the cups sliding against hand polished heads, the low magnica-
tion micrograph (Fig. 6A) shows the bands, which present a different
morphology as the surface surrounding. When increasing the
magnications (Fig. 6B) it can be seen that the bands in the medial
zone consist of UHMWPE material, where the production of UHMWPE
brils is evident as well as a ripple-like microstructure. The brils are
several microns in length and extend over several ripples (Fig. 6C). For
the cups sliding against CoCrMo coated heads, the microstructure
resembles what was found for the UHMWPE cups surface sliding
against the hand polished heads. An example of the bands founded as
isolated island is presented in Fig. 6D. At higher magnications it can
be seen a ripple-like microstructure and UHMWPE brils (Fig. 6E and
F). However, brils are smaller and fewer when compared with those
formed in the UHMWPE/hand polished sliding pair. It seems therefore
that wear is in a less advanced stage to what observed for the
UHMWPE/hand polished sliding pair [4244]. This lower bril
production demonstrates the lesser damage causes on the worn cup
surface for the UHMWPE/CoCrMo coated sliding pair.

4. Conclusions

The results of the HJS wear tests have shown that the wear
resistance of UHMWPE sliding against the CoCrMo coating was higher
than when sliding against mass nished and hand polished CoCrMo
alloys. Besides, the mass nishing treatment on CoCrMo alloys
reduced the UHMWPE wear when compared to hand polished
CoCrMo. The HJS parameters used in this work reproduce adequately
the in vivo conditions, according to the agreement of the results
obtained with the clinical results.

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