Fantastic paper (Transient mixed lubrication model of the human knee implant) from Rob Hewson’s Group at Imperial outlining a computational approach to implant design in terms of the biotribology of knee replacements. Crucially, the investigation uses real-world implant geometries and a statistical description of the surface roughness. Interestingly the model predicts that, under the motion and loading cycles from the standard ISO 14243-3, the implant can demonstrate elastohydrodynamic, mixed and boundary lubrication.
The paper was published in a special issue of the Journal ‘Biosurface and Biotribology’ in celebration of the life of Prof Duncan Dowson who, more than anyone, made an outstanding contribution to Biotribology especially from a Leeds perspective.
Image from Butt, H, Nissim, L, Gao, L et al. (3 more authors) (2021) Transient mixed lubrication model of the human knee implant. Biosurface and Biotribology. ISSN 2405-4518