Tribological behavior of zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) against Ti6Al4V under different bio-lubricants in hip prosthesis using experimental and finite element concepts

Abstract The present study investigated the tribological behaviour of zirconia toughened alumina (ZTA) against titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) grade 5 material. Four loading conditions (15, 20, 25 and 30 N) with five different bio-lubricants include saline solution, Phosphate buffered saline, Ringer’s solution, Distilled water and Sesame oil were utilized to compute the friction and wear coefficients for a sliding distance of 10 km using ball-on-disc tribometer. Further submodeling finite element technique was used to estimate the contact pressure developed for normal walking equivalent to 2 years of implant’s life. The friction and wear coefficient values for sesame oil were found to be minimum among different loading and lubrication conditions. Also, the minimum wear was obtained for sesame oil bio-lubricant for normal walking activity. The obtained results suggested that sesame oil could improve tribological behavior as a bio-lubricant for ZTA-Ti6Al4V combination.