Shape Optimization of Femoral Components of an Artificial Hip Prosthesis Using the Three-Dimensional P-Version Finite Element Study and the In Vitro Measurement of Strain in the Bone Cement

Though Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) is being performed with greater frequency every year for patients with endstage arthritis of hip, mechanical fatigue of bone cement leading to damage accumulation is implicated in the loosening of cemented hip components. This fatigue failure of bone cement has been reported to be the result of high tensile and shear stresses at the bone cement. The aim of this study is to design the optimum shape of femoral component of a THA that minimizes the peak stress value of maximum principal stress at the bone cement and to validate the FEM results by comparing numerical stress with experimental ones. The p-version three-dimensional Finite Element Method (FEM) combined with an optimization procedure was used to perform the shape optimization. Moreover the strain in the cement mantle surrounding the cemented femoral component of a THA was measured in vitro using strain gauges embedded within the cement mantle adjacent to the developed femoral stem to validate the optimization results of FEM.