Hip Prosthesis Design with a Shock Absorber

The conventional hip prostheses and the implanted bone are subjected to high stresses and strains under sudden and shock loadings (jumping, sudden movements, falling, etc.).In order to reduce these stresses and strains, we were inspired by a simple mechanical damper to design a hip prosthesis by incorporating a shock absorber proximally.Initially, hip prostheses with similar stem dimensions, Type A (conventional), Type B (spring based), and Type C (shock absorber based), were designed by considering prosthesis design parameters.Then, finite element analysis was performed for all three prostheses.Boundary conditions, such as physiological forces and fixations, were applied as suggested in studies reported in the literature.Once the simulations were completed, the time-dependent stress and deformation responses of the shock absorber-based and spring-based prostheses under sudden loading conditions were compared with those of the conventional prosthesis.The results showed that the stresses and strains in the shock absorber-based prosthesis were lower than those in both the spring-based and conventional prostheses.This finding suggests that the prosthesis could help reduce the frequency of revision arthroplasty surgeries.