Wear of Biocompatible Polymeric Composites

The main objective of this work is to study the effect of vegetables oils contents on the wear of high density polyethylene (HDPE) by adding 2.0, 4.0, 6.0, 8.0 and 10.0 wt. % of vegetables oils such as mint, avocado, watercress, castor, camphor, mustard, almond, clove, coconut and black seed oil to HDPE matrix before molding. The proposed composites can be used in hip joint or knee joint to reduce the friction and wear. After adding the oil, mixing with HDPE and molding then the test specimens were heated to 145 °C and quenched water. It was found that wear decreased with increasing oil content down to minimum then increased with further oil content increase. The optimum oil content was 6.0 wt. %. The lowest wear values were observed for the composites filled by watercress and black seed oils. Those observations recommend the composites to be used as bearing materials at dry sliding applications such hip joints. While the highest wear was observed for composites filled by coconut oil.