Fatigue testing of acrylic bone cements: statistical concepts and proposed test methodology

In order to determine the fatigue behavior of a material, a standard procedure and methodology must be proposed and validated. This article describes a standard test method and statistical analysis for describing the fatigue properties of acrylic bone cement. It is proposed that bone cement fatigue data can be subjected to probability of failure (P) analysis and the establishment of a distribution function describing the data. It is also proposed that an Olgive type curve can be used to describe the stress (S) vs. cycles to failure (N) data. These two data sets can then be combined to determine the P-S-N relationship which fully describes the fatigue characteristics of the material.