In-silico Analytical Wear Predictions: Application to Joint Prostheses

Wear is a tribological phenomenon occurring to rubbing surfaces, where contact actions and relative sliding cause a loss of volume with surface damage. Therefore, wear is considered one of the main causes of failure of mechanical components, from gears to joint replacements. Wear resistance is generally determined with expensive and time-consuming experimental tests under simplified laboratory conditions. Thus, in-silico wear predictions represent an attractive alternative to experimental campaigns, being cheaper and more rapid. Moreover, they can provide indications on wear behavior of rubbing surfaces in realistic working conditions. However, wear simulations are not so widespread today, mainly because the development of models requires some peculiar attentions and it is not easy to check the reliability of results. This chapter aims to describe in-silico wear predictions by means of an analytical approach, in order to provide some practical indications to researchers entering this field. As examples, applications to investigate wear in hip and shoulder prostheses are described.