Applied Taguchi method for fatigue testing of customized hip implant.

PURPOSE: Human activities generate stresses, which vary with time and may result in fatigue failure of the customized hip implant. This study aims to investigate fatigue testing of customized hip implants using the minimum number of experiments by the Taguchi method, for 147 patients. This study was also useful to determine the influential geometrical parameters on the fatigue safety factor of customized hip implants.

METHODS: Horizontal offset (HO), vertical offset (VO) and neck shaft angle (NSA) of the hip joint of 147 patients were measured on computed tomography (CT) scanned images. Stress and strain of hip implants were calculated by finite element analysis and validated by in vitro experimental tests. Fatigue safety factors were calculated by Goodman, Soderberg and Gerber's fatigue theories and maximum stresses.

RESULTS: Analysis of variance results show that the highest impact on fatigue safety factors was equal to 54.38% for HO, 16.33% for VO, and was equal to 29.16% for NSA with reference to Goodman, Soderberg and Gerber's fatigue theories. The hip implant shape of experiment no. 8 has the highest safety factor value compared to all other hip implants.

CONCLUSIONS: The results show that HO has the maximum influence on fatigue safety factors. The determination of influential geometric parameters may be useful to redesign customized hip implants in order to achieve the highest fatigue safety factor. The Taguchi method is suitable for fatigue testing of custom hip implant with a minimum number of experiments.