Finite element analysis of artificial hip joint movement during human activities

The range of motion of artificial hip joint during human activities, measured from the postoperative total hip arthroplasty patients, has been reported previously. There were two human activities discussed, i.e. Western-style and Japanese-style. This paper analyzes the hip joint movement during human activities, based on the measured range of motion, using finite element simulation. The Western-style activities consist of picking up, getting up and sitting, while the Japanese-style activities consist of sitting on legs with fully flexed at the knee (seiza), squatting and sitting on legs with fully flexed at the knee (zarei). The aim of this study is to investigate the probability of prosthetic impingement to occur and to calculate the von Mises stress during the activities. A three-dimensional nonlinear finite element (FE) method was used in the simulation. The acetabular liner cup positions were varied. Results show that in the Western-style activities, the picking up activity induces prosthetic impingement in a certain acetabular liner cup position, whereas in the Japanese-style activities there is no prosthetic impingement observed. However, the Japanese's Zarei activity has a critical value in the range of motion. The von Mises stresses during the prosthetic impingement have been shown and the value is higher than the yield stress of the material.