Upgrade and Modification of a Machine for Micro-Abrasion Wear Testing in Simulated Biological Environments with Oscillatory Motion

Aiming to evaluate the useful life of biomaterials used in joint prostheses, this study performed different wear tests in stainless steel 316L, a biomaterial used in hip joint replacements. The tests were carried out in a dry medium, with the help of an equipment that was improved regarding some of its characteristics and allows conducting wear tests via the contact of two bodies, one of them being the biomaterial under study and the other one a sphere of a harder material. For the evaluation, a device was developed to change the rotation of the sphere, varying the angle it traveled and the frequency with which it did it. Once the improvements were made to the aforementioned equipment, tests were conducted which involved obtaining wear tracks in order to observe the surface morphology through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and to measure the length and the width of the tracks, with which the biomaterial wear coefficient was obtained for each case studied. In these tests, the wear coefficient showed variations with respect to the sphere’s angle of travel.