Tribological Behavior of Articular Cartilage against Medical Stainless Steel

The tribological behavior of articular cartilage pin against stainless steel was evaluated by using an reciprocating friction tester. The influences of load, velocity, lubrication and testing time factors on the tribological behavior of this friction pair were investigated, then contact surfaces and wear particle was analyzed. The results show that the friction coefficient of friction pair decreased from 0.147 to 0.117 with the increase of the load from 10 N to 22 N. The friction coefficient decreased with the increase of moving velocity under the same lubrication and load condition. Hyaluronic acid effectively reduced the friction coefficient between cartilage and stainless steel, the friction coefficient remained stable at 0.23. After wear test, plenty of wear particles and cracks in cartilage surface were found. The distribution range of wear particles was narrow, and a large number of wear particles with small size were found on the cartilage surface.