Wear Modelling of Total Knee Replacements

Beside prosthesis loosening, wear is the mechanical factor that most significantly influences the lifetime of total knee replacements (TKRs), which can only be described by a number of interrelated parameters. The examination of the wear occurring in TKRs is mostly carried out as a combination of experiments and mathematical modeling. The experiment can provide the real magnitude of wear, while the model is intended to mathematically describe the relationship between wear and the wear-inducing parameters. On the one hand, this study focuses on the mathematical description of wear as a natural-technical phenomenon, presenting the most important analytical and numerical models, while also providing an open view on exciting questions that still await answers.