Mechanical Investigation for the Use of Polylactic Acid in Total Hip Arthroplasty Using FEM Analysis

Polylactic acid (PLA) is a biodegradable non-toxic, biocompatible polymer used as a popular filament material in biomedical applications with the advance of 3D printing technologies. PLA is considered a suitable implant material due to its contribution to bone regeneration. In this study, the use of PLA in Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) as a liner material was assessed. In this regard, the PLA liner with different material combinations in THA was examined to provide evidence for its potential. The hip implant prototypewas drawn using a computer-aided design tool then transferred into a commercial finite element analysis (FEA) software. The prototypesconsisted of assemblies of PLA with titanium, chrome cobalt, stainless steels, dense NiTi shape-alloys, and Alumina-Zirconia. Simulations were run under static loading conditions. To evaluate and compare the results for the optimum design; factor of safety, total deformation and von Mises stress analysis were used. The results show that Co-Cr implemented implants produce the highest factor of safety. When Al-Zi combined with PLA, it produced least deformation and reasonable von- Mises stress values. PLA might perform best when used with Al-Zi. As a next step, experimental pre-clinical tests are planned to assess the clinical potential.