A comparative study of wear laws for soft-on-hard hip implants using a mathematical wear model

Wear of UHMWPE acetabular components is the most serious threat to the long-term success of hip replacements. Consequently numerical and experimental wear simulations are of great interest. The present study proposes a mathematical wear model and compares the most recent wear laws, based on the so-called cross-shear (CS) effect. Simulations highlighted the variability of wear predictions with the wear factors/laws. Moreover a sensitivity analysis underlined that the kinematic conditions affect volumetric/linear wear more than the loading ones. This study confirms the importance of the CS in wear predictions even if some critical issues are still open, requiring further investigations.