Study on wear debris characteristics of different polyethylene under reciprocating sliding and compound motion modes

The UHMWPE wear debris has become an important reason affecting the service life and clinical reliability of the prosthesis. In order to further reveal the wear debris characteristics, three kinds of UHMWPE materials including non-crosslinked UHMWPE (UPE), Crosslinked UHMWPE (XLPE) and E-vitamin doped UHMWPE (EXPE) were taken as research objects, and the quantity, size, morphology and distribution characteristics of wear debris under reciprocating sliding and compound motion modes were systematically studied. Among them, the ball-on-disk samples were adopted under reciprocating sliding, and the real ball-on-socket contact mode of artificial cervical disc prosthesis was adopted under compound motion. The tribological experiments were performed with the frequency of 2Hz under 50,000 cycles with newborn bovine serum solution. The results showed that the dominant wear mechanism was abrasive wear accompanied by fatigue cracks under reciprocating sliding mode, while adhesive wear accompanied by a few abrasive wear under compound motion mode. Compared with the quantity of wear debris under reciprocating sliding mode, the number of UHMWPE debris under composite motion mode was reduced by 28.8%, 31.4% and 37.1% for UPE, XLPE and EXPE debris, respectively. The debris results of the three different polymers were consistent in the quantity, size range, morphology and distribution, but different in the size distribution characteristics. The largest proportion of EXPE debris size occurred in the range of less than 1 μm, while the largest proportion of UPE and XLPE debris size ranges from 1 to 5 μm under reciprocating sliding mode. When the debris size was in the range of 1–5 μm under compound motion mode, it accounted for the largest proportion with a value of 55.7%, 66.7% and 74.0% for UPE, XLPE and EXPE debris, respectively. The UHMWPE debris morphology included six main types: spherical, flakes, rods, fibrillar, granular, and other types. Granular and “other types” debris were the dominant types and the sum proportion of these two types of debris for the three kinds of UHMWPE materials was all as high as 80%. Hence, the material type, pair shape, load and movement profiles may have more or less influence on the quantity, size, morphology and distribution characteristics of UHMWPE debris.