Mechanical Properties of Epoxy-UHMWPE Variant for Hip Implant Proposal: Preliminary Study on Numerical and Experimental

• Published in: INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING AND MECHATRONICS, SIMM 2023
• Main Authors: Abd Manap, Muhammad Faris; Shuib, Solehuddin; Romli, Ahmad Zafir; Ahmad, Farrah Noor; Noh, Nor Shamimi Shaari Md; Zainudin, Mahfuzah
• Format: Proceedings Paper
• Language: English
• Published: SPRINGER-VERLAG SINGAPORE PTE LTD 2024
• Subjects: Engineering
• Online Access: https://www-webofscience-com.uitm.idm.oclc.org/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:001313737300031

Demanding of improving hip implant material selection increase every year. Thus, since few decades ago, research were conducted focusing on incorporating material to improve its lifespan. Epoxy reinforced with different loadings of Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) particles were prepared using hand-layup techniques. The effect of different UHMWPE particles formulation on the Epoxy matrix were investigated based on mechanical properties aspect. Instron Universal Testing machine equipped with extensometer and Microscopy Scanning Machine was used to acquire the Young's Modulus, Poisson's ratio and eventually observe the outcome of UHMWPE particles amount on the Epoxy matrix, respectively. The results indicated that the thickness of the variants affecting the Young's Modulus which increased up to 66% at 5 mm thickness EpUHMWPE variants. The Poisson's ratio also shows different value which 5 mm thickness variants obtained higher Poisson's ratio. The numerical formulation predicted that Young's Modulus should decrease proportional with the increase of thickness and higher filler added, however the results by experimental study indicated otherwise. The observation through microscopy shows that higher filler will disperse uniformly especially in EpUHMWPE4 and EPUHMWPE5 at both thickness condition. However, higher filler does not indicate improvement of the mechanical properties as EpUHMWPE2 at 5 mm thickness shows highest mechanical properties improvement at just 2 wt%. This study successfully tested the EpUHMWPE composites by finding the Young's Modulus and Poisson's ratio of the sample variants.