The effect of the wall tickness on war of an UHMWPE acetabular liner

A larger diameter of femoral head of artificial hip joint (AHJ) is commonly recommended for increasing range of motion (RoM) and for avoiding dislocation. Unfortunately, increasing that diameter will reduce the material liner thickness of the acetabular component. The behaviour of the AHJ contact system with thickness variation of the Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) acetabular liner was studied numerically and experimentally. Finite element analysis was employed for calculating contact stresses and the wear volume was measured experimentally. Numerical results show higher contact stresses with decreasing liner wall thickness. Yet, the experimental results suggest that wear decreases as well with decreasing wall thickness. These findings are important in designing an optimised acetabular liner for larger RoM.