Hydrodynamic Lubrication Analysis of Metallic Hip Joint

Abstract

Transient numerical analysis for the lubrication process of a metallic hip joint has been performed for both pure squeeze and combined motion of squeezing and oscillatory rotation. Lubrication performance for two types of cup, namely the single-radius cup and the multi-radius cup, has been examined. Results show that the multi-radius cup has a better lubrication performance than the single-radius cup. Increasing cup radius and decreasing the clearance between the cup and head can effectively increase the lubricant film thickness. A metallic hip joint is capable of achieving full-film lubrication if a relatively large cup radius and/or small clearance between the cup and head are used xuith proper cup geometrical configurations.