Low plasticity burnishing improves fretting fatigue resistance in bone-anchored implants for amputation prostheses
Journal article, 2022

Fretting fatigue is a common problem for modular orthopedic implants which may lead to mechanical failure of the implant or inflammatory tissue responses due to excessive release of wear debris. Compressive residual stresses at the contacting surfaces may alleviate the problem. Here we investigate the potential of a surface enhancement method known as low plasticity burnishing (LPB) to increase the fretting fatigue resistance of bone-anchored implants for skeletal attachment of limb prostheses. Rotation bending fatigue tests performed on LPB treated and untreated test specimens demonstrate that the LPB treatment leads to statistically significantly increased resistance to fretting fatigue (LPB treated test specimens withstood on average 108,780 load cycles as compared with 37,845 load cycles for untreated test specimens, p = 0.004). LPB treated test specimens exhibited less wear at the modular interface as compared with untreated test specimens. This surface treatment may lead to reduced risk of fretting induced component failure and a reduced need for revision of implant system componentry.

Osseointegration

Bone-anchored attachment

Fretting fatigue

Direct skeletal attachment

Low plasticity burnishing

OPRA

Mechanical testing

Osseointegrated prostheses for the rehabilitation of amputees (OPRA)

Author

Alexander Thesleff

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Signal Processing and Biomedical Engineering

Integrum AB

Center for Bionics and Pain Research

Max Jair Ortiz Catalan

Sahlgrenska University Hospital

Center for Bionics and Pain Research

Chalmers, Electrical Engineering, Systems and control

Rickard Brånemark

Sahlgrenska University Hospital

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Medical Engineering and Physics

1350-4533 (ISSN) 18734030 (eISSN)

Vol. 100 103755

Subject Categories

Other Materials Engineering

Biomaterials Science

Medical Materials

DOI

10.1016/j.medengphy.2022.103755

More information

Latest update

2/8/2022 8