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Wear

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Biomedical Materials

Abstract

Wear is a critical issue for prostheses, implants, and other medical devices. Wear may lead to significant loss of material and/or failure of a medical device. For example, wear and wear-related damage commonly cause failure of hip, knee, and other orthopedic prostheses (Wright TM, Goodman SB (eds), Implant wear in total joint replacement: clinical and biologic issues, material and design considerations. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Rosemont, 2001). Even a relatively small amount of wear can lead to significant degradation of function for some medical devices. For example, wear debris generated from degradation of a joint prosthesis can result in a biological process known as osteolysis (bone resorption), which can cause loosening of the prosthesis (Zhu YH, Chiu KY and Tang WM, J Orthop Surg 9: 91–99, 2001 and Teoh SH Int J Fatigue 22:825–837, 2000). Wear may also lead to failure of artificial heart valves and other medical devices that enable critical physiologic activities (Kelpetko V, Moritz A, Schurawitzki H, Domanig E and Wolner E, J Thoracic Cardiovascular Surg 97:90-94, 1989). In this chapter, the wear mechanisms that are commonly encountered in biomedical materials and medical devices are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Chunming Jin

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Wei Wei

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  1. Chunming Jin
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  2. Wei Wei
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Correspondence to Chunming Jin .

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  1. Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Roger Narayan

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Jin, C., Wei, W. (2021). Wear. In: Narayan, R. (eds) Biomedical Materials. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49206-9_10

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