Bio-tribological behavior of articular cartilage based on biological morphology

Artificial hemiarthroplasty is one of the effective methods for the treatment of hip joint diseases, but the wear failure of the interface between the hemi hip joint material and articular cartilage restricts the life of the prosthesis. Therefore, it is important to explore the damage mechanism between the interfaces to prolong the life of the prosthesis and improve the life quality of the prosthesis replacement. In this paper, the creep and bio-tribological properties of cartilage against PEEK, CoCrMo alloy, and ceramic were studied, and the tribological differences between “hard–soft” and “soft–soft” contact were analyzed based on biomorphology. The results showed that with the increase of time in vitro, the thickness of the cartilage membrane decreased, the surface damage was aggravated, and the anti-creep ability of cartilage was weakened. Second, the creep resistance of the soft–soft contact pair was better than that of the hard–soft contact pair. Also, the greater the load and the longer the wear time, the more serious the cartilage damage. Among the three friction pairs, the cartilage in PEEK/articular cartilage was the least damaged, followed by CoCrMo alloy/articular cartilage, and the most damage was found in ceramic/articular, indicating that the soft–soft friction pair inflicted the least damage to the cartilage. [Image: see text]