Contact Mechanics of Soft Layer Artificial Hip Joints: Part 1: General Solutions

Unlike natural synovial joints, which are lubricated with a full fluid film lubrication mechanism, conventional artificial hip joints are lubricated with a mixed lubrication mechanism. Recently, however, a new generation of artificial hip joints employing compliant layers to mimic the compliance of articular cartilage in natural synovial joints have been developed to provide fluid film lubrication in these joints. While satisfactory lubrication can be achieved by employing soft layers, compliant thin layers are susceptible to the debonding between the soft layer and its stiffer substrate and long-term mechanical fatigue failure. Stress analyses for different designs of such joints are therefore important. In the present paper, the circular contact between a rigid sphere and an elastomeric layer bonded on to a rigid substrate has been analysed with a novel semi-analytical approach. The detailed contact parameters (the contact radius, the maximum surface deformation, the contact pressure and the contact stress inside the layer) have been examined for a wide range of aspect ratios (0 ≤ a/h_t ≤ 100).