Study of wear prediction on total ankle replacement

Abstract

Pre-clinical experimental wear testing is very effective to evaluate new ankle replacement in the aspect of design and material used. However, both cost and time can be one of the constraints factors, particularly in the early stage of design or analysis. Numerical method has been addressed as an alternative to predict wear on ankle replacement. The computational wear simulation has been widely used on the hip and knee but very less found in study related to wear analysis of the ankle. The purpose of this research is to develop computational simulation to predict wear on total ankle replacement (TAR). Three dimensional (3D) models of the right ankle TAR were developed using BOX total ankle replacement model. Mobile bearing device was developed consisting of three components tibial, bearing and talar. Each component has different design and purposes representing its physiological behaviour of the ankle. The ankle load applied was based on the joint reaction force profile at the ankle joint. This is to determine the distribution of contact stress on the meniscal bearing surfaces contact with talar component for 25 discrete instant during stance phase of gait cycle. The sliding distance was obtained from predominates motion of plantar/dorsi flexion. The computed linear wear depth and cumulative volumetric wear were 0.01614 mm per million cycles and 30.5 mm3, respectively. The values obtained were proven to be consistent with the previous in vitro result.