On the pressure dependence of the wear of ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene

The wear of polyethylene in bovine serum was evaluated as a function of load and molecular weight. The range and distribution of contact loadings simulated those which exist in currently available total hip and total knee prostheses. The wear increased exponentially with load at constant molecular weight. An increasing molecular weight parametrically displaced the exponential curve to higher loads, lowering the overall rate. It is proposed that the behavior of these materials be described in terms of a critical pressure-velocity product although the specific mechanisms for wear acceleration are not known in this case.