Ke. Elbert et al., FATIGUE-CRACK PROPAGATION BEHAVIOR OF ULTRA-HIGH-MOLECULAR-WEIGHT POLYETHYLENE UNDER MIXED-MODE CONDITIONS, Journal of biomedical materials research, 28(2), 1994, pp. 181-187
Analytical studies of the stresses on and within ultra high molecular
weight polyethylene joint components suggest that damage modes associa
ted with polyethylene fatigue failure are caused by a combination of s
urface and subsurface crack propagation. Fatigue crack propagation tes
ts under mixed mode loading conditions were conducted on center-cracke
d tension specimens machined from extruded blocks of sterilized polyet
hylene in an attempt to determine how fatigue cracks change direction
in this material. Cyclic testing was performed using a sinusoidal wave
form at a frequency of 5 Hz and an R-ratio (minimum load/maximum load
) of 0.15. Specimens had the notch oriented perpendicular to the direc
tion of applied load and at angles of 60 degrees and 45 degrees to the
loading direction. Numerical analyses were used to interpret the expe
rimental test and to predict the fatigue behavior of polyethylene unde
r mixed mode conditions. It was found that all cracks eventually propa
gated horizontally, regardless of the initial angle of inclination of
the notch to the direction of applied cyclic load. In fact, the extent
of the curvilinear crack growth was quite Limited. An effective range
of cyclic stress intensity factor was calculated for correlation with
the rate of crack growth. The results followed a Paris relation, with
crack growth rate linearly related to a power of the range of stress
intensity, for all three crack orientations. The numerical analyses ad
equately modeled the experimental fatigue crack growth results. (C) 19
94 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.