Development of a ten-station, multi-axis hip joint simulator

Abstract

Joint simulators are now used extensively to evaluate the performance of materials and designs of total replacement hip and knee joints. In this Technical Note a new ten-station hip joint simulator with biaxial rotational articulation synchronized to a physiological loading cycle is described. The current simulator manufactured by ProSim Limited (Manchester, UK) is a development of a first generation machine designed and built in-house at DePuy International Limited (Leeds, UK). The use of this new form of ten-station hip simulator to evaluate the performance of 22 mm zirconia femoral heads and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene acetabular cups over some 7 million loading cycles is described elsewhere [1].