The current life expectancy for a successfully implanted hip joint can nowadays be approximately estimated to be 15 years. However, with the development of alternative low-wear bearings, achievement of longer lifetimes are hopefully expected. Non-oxide ceramics and particularly silicon nitride materials certainly exhibit better mechanical behavior as compared to oxide bio-ceramics, which would certainly represent a benefit, explicitly in terms of an improved safety factor. Besides the high fracture strength (comparable with that of composite oxides), the most appealing property is the high fracture toughness due to a microstructure containing elongated grains with a remarkable toughening effect due to crack bridging. Moreover, these engineered microstructures allow a very high reliability of Si3N4-based ceramics. With such interesting characteristics, one may wonder why non-oxide bulk ceramics were not widely used in orthopedics before.

Non-Oxide Ceramics

Medri Valentina;Landi Elena;Bellosi Alida
2016

Abstract

The current life expectancy for a successfully implanted hip joint can nowadays be approximately estimated to be 15 years. However, with the development of alternative low-wear bearings, achievement of longer lifetimes are hopefully expected. Non-oxide ceramics and particularly silicon nitride materials certainly exhibit better mechanical behavior as compared to oxide bio-ceramics, which would certainly represent a benefit, explicitly in terms of an improved safety factor. Besides the high fracture strength (comparable with that of composite oxides), the most appealing property is the high fracture toughness due to a microstructure containing elongated grains with a remarkable toughening effect due to crack bridging. Moreover, these engineered microstructures allow a very high reliability of Si3N4-based ceramics. With such interesting characteristics, one may wonder why non-oxide bulk ceramics were not widely used in orthopedics before.
2016
Istituto di Scienza, Tecnologia e Sostenibilità per lo Sviluppo dei Materiali Ceramici - ISSMC (ex ISTEC)
978-1-78326-716-3
bearings; ceramics; silicon nitride
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14243/316693
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