Numerical investigation of fatigue behavior in Ti-6Al-4V orthopedic hip implants subjected to different environments

Abstract

In this paper, hip implants made of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy are analyzed numerically using Extended Finite Element Method XFEM. The combined effect of corrosion and fatigue was considered here since this is a common cause of failure of hip implants. Experimental testing of Ti-6Al-4V alloy was performed to determine its mechanical properties under different working environments, including normal, salty, and humid conditions. The integrity and life of the hip implant were assessed using the Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) approach. For this purpose, the conditional fracture toughness Kq using CT specimens from all three groups (normal, humid, salty conditions) were determined. This provided insight into how different aggressive environments affect the behavior of Ti-6Al-4V alloy; i.e., how much its resistance to crack growth would degrade depending on conditions corresponding to the real exploitation of hip implants. Next, analytical and XFEM analyses of fatigue behavior in terms of the number of cycles were performed for all three groups, and the obtained results showed good agreement, confirming the validity of the integrity assessment approach shown in this work, which also represented a novel approach since fatigue and corrosion effects were investigated simultaneously.