Objective
Lifetime of artificial hips and knees is a serious limitation to their use, especially in relativity young and active people. The introduction of ceramics like alumina and zirconia drastically reduce the wear rate, but fracture rates of up to 1.6 % have been reported for alumina-alumina pairs due to its brittleness Additionally, problems related with the steam sterilization and hydrothermal degradation make that a zirconia-zirconia combination must be avoided. The aim of this project is to increase the life span of ceramic-ceramic knee and hip orthopedic implants to 30 years by using a zirconium toughened alumina ceramic nanocomposite with a clearly improved suitability. This material is obtained by means of a new and innovative processing technology using power / alcoxide mixtures and a pressure Casting forming technique (patent pending).
Fields of science
Keywords
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
33011 OVIEDO
Spain