WETTABILITY OF BEARING COUPLES: HOW TO PREPARE THE SURFACES

INTRODUCTIONWettability of bearing couples has always been related to the tribological performance of implants, and it is understood to affect lubrication of surfaces. So far researchers fail to understand the real mechanisms governing the lubrication process of prostheses. Different models attempt to explain the phenomena, but more research is needed. To add more difficulties, some classical measuring techniques have provided inaccurate values of surface properties. For instance, wettability may seem a priori a simple technique capable of providing easy-to-read cost-effective information. However, ignoring surface preparation may lead to wrong values of wettability and mis-understanding of the results.OBJECTIVESThe dependence of wettability of commercial bearing materials used in arthroplasty has been studied as a function of the cleaning procedure, showing the variability of the results, and providing a series of guidelines to understand and perform wettability measurements.EXPERIMENTAL METHODSThree dif...