Tribological behaviour of polycarbonate urethane against Ti-6Al-4V for long-term resilient

Abstract

Polycarbonate urethane has gained popularity as a bearing material to replace the existing hard polymeric materials in artificial joints. However, the viability of using polycarbonate urethane in artificial disc replacement over its metal counterpart is the challenge addressed in this research work. The present study is carried out to find the tribological behaviour of polycarbonate urethane against Ti-6Al-4V, which is the most frequently used endplate material in artificial disc replacement. The wear test is performed in pin-on-disc tribometer under lubricated condition using Hank's balanced salt solution with the variation in load as 10, 15, and 20 N, speed as 0.31, 0.63, and 0.94 m/s, and the number of cycles being 10,000, 25,000, and 50,000. A long-term wear evaluation is carried out to find the wear behaviour of polycarbonate urethane against Ti-6Al-4V. The wear is measured based on gravimetric analysis, and microscopic images are taken to analyze the wear pattern. The multi-objective optimization is also carried out to study the effect of control parameters. The wear pattern reveals that polycarbonate urethane has good tribological behaviour against Ti-6Al-4V. As the number of cycles increases, the polycarbonate urethane worn surfaces were found to be smooth. These results indicate that the polycarbonate urethane exhibits good resilience even after prolonged use.