Heat transfer analysis of frictional heat dissipation during articulation of femoral implants

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Previous studies have shown the tendency for frictional heating to occur during articulation of total hip systems in vitro under simulated hip loading conditions. The magnitude of this heating is sufficient to accelerate wear, creep, and oxidation degradation of the UHMWPE bearing surface. It was shown that ceramic articulating systems generate less frictional heating than polished cobalt alloy against UHMWPE. This fricitonal heating is expected to occur primarily for younger, heavier, and more active patients. Thus, long-term performance of the articulating hip system in these patients may not be that predicted from current, body-temperature wear, creep, and degradation studies. Although the tendency to generate frictional heat has been observed only during in vitro simulated hip loading, a heat transfer analysis of this phenomenon is presented to evaluate the ability of the hip joint to dissipate such heating in vivo. Additional experiments were performed using controlled resistance heaters inside a cobalt femoral head to verify the calculated levels of frictional heat and to assess the heat dissipation under simulated in vivo conditions. The effect of blood perfusion on the effective thermal conductivity of the joint capsule is also discussed. The present study describes and analyzes the various heat dissipation mechanisms present both in vitro and in vivo during articulation of metal and ceramic hip systems. From these tests and analyses, it is concluded that frictional heating in the reconstructed hip cannot be effectively removed, and that degredative elevated temperature processes can be expected to occur in vivo to both the UHMWPE and adjacent tissue under extended periods of excessive patient activity. This is particularly true for metal cobalt alloy femoral heads articulating on UHMWPE versus ceramic heads which generate significantly lower levels of heat.