On the secondary stability of coated cementless hip replacement: parameters that affected interface strength

Unlike primary stability of coated cementless implants, their secondary stability has been poorly studied. This paper considers some theoretical aspects of the secondary stability of a coated cementless hip implant in a human femur. The bone is separated from the implant by a thin layer of microscopic peaks and troughs formed on the surface of the coating. The size of the peaks and troughs is very small compared with the macrosize of the implant stem and bone in contact. The study of the bone-stem contact by direct application of the finite element method is prohibitively costly. A two-scale asymptotic homogenisation procedure that takes into account the microgeometry of the interface layer and mechanical properties of bone and the implant material is applied to obtain effective, homogenised contact parameters. These parameters can be used in finite element analyses involving smooth interfaces, which require hundreds of times fewer finite elements. With the homogenisation technique and finite element analyses for a simplified design, two parameters were found to be most important--the normal contact stiffness and the friction coefficient. They both increase several times as bone grows into the rough surface of the implant and mineralises, thus providing a stronger interface and resulting in reduced micromotions.