The influence of the viscosity classification of an acrylic bone cement on its in vitro fatigue performance

The goal of the present work was to investigate the influence of the viscosity classification of an acrylic bone cement on its in vitro fatigue performance, as determined in fully-reversed tension-compression (+/-15 MPa) fatigue tests. The test matrix comprised six commercially available bone cements [Orthoset1, (OS1), Orthoset(R)3 (OS3), CemexRX (CRX), Cemex XL (CXL), Palacos R (PR) and Osteopal (OP)], two methods of mixing the cement constituents (hand-mixing and vacuum-mixing), two methods of fabricating the test specimens (direct molding and molding followed by machining), two specimen cross-sectional shapes (rectangular or "flat" and circular or "round"), and four test frequencies (1, 2, 5, and 10 Hz). In total, 185 specimens, distributed among 20 sets, were tested. The test results (number of fatigue stress cycles, N_f) were processed using the linearized transformation of the three-parameter Weibull distribution, whence estimates of the Weibull mean, N_[WM], were obtained. Statistical analysis of the ln N_f results (Mann-Whitney test; alpha<0.05) and a comparison of the N_[WM] estimates for specimen sets in which the formulations have essentially the same composition but different viscosity classification (namely, OS1 versus OS3, CRX versus CXL, and PR versus OP) showed that, in the majority of the comparisons carried out, the viscosity classification of a bone cement does not exert a significant influence on its in vitro fatigue performance.