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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Subject-specific Musculoskeletal Model for Studying Bone Strain During Dynamic Motion
Published on: April 11, 2018
Coupling of dynamics and contact mechanics of artificial hip joints in a pendulum model
H Liu1, P J Ellison, H Xu
1Theory of Lubrication and Bearing Institute, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, People's Republic of China. liuhping@gmail.com
Abstract:
To date, fully coupled dynamics and contact mechanics analysis is still limited by expensive computational cost and long computing time and has not been addressed comprehensively, particularly in the hip joint. To understand the influence of different parameters on the biomechanics of the total hip replacement (THR) and improve its design, two numerical approaches were developed and implemented in finite element models to investigate the coupling between the dynamics response and the contact mechanics for three different THR configurations, metal-on-polyethylene (MOP), metal-on-metal (MOM), and ceramic-on-ceramic (COC). The dynamic force and the contact pressure distribution at the bearing surfaces from the two methods were predicted and compared. The influences of various parameters (motion angle, load applied in the pendulum, friction coefficient, geometry, and material properties) were subsequently investigated. From the comparisons, the decoupled method, based on the rigid-body dynamics and the quasi-static elastic contact mechanics, was adequate to predict the performance of the THRs efficiently. The load had the greatest influence on the dynamics/contact mechanics among other factors.
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