Early Ideas/Sketches

Figure 1: My early concept sketching for various components/materials

Figure 2: Early concepts from my teammate Sivansh

Figure 4: Early concepts from my teammate

Figure 3: Early concepts from my teammate Michelle

Figure 5-6: Early concepts from my teammate Mahi

Prototypes

1. Our first prototype changed a lot of aspects of conventional hip implants, but kept it mostly the same. First, we shortened the femoral stem to reduce bone damage and bending. We also wanted to implement a pseudosynovial fluid in order to help reduce friction of the head. Next, we implemented an acetabular liner and left some space between the ball and bone to reduce friction. Finally, we wanted to use a hollow stem to promote bone in-growth and overall osteointegration. However, there were still major drawbacks, like not being able to use metal, and a high recovery time after fixation.

Figure 8: A printed version of prototype two

Figure 7: Concept sketch of prototype one

1. In this prototype we decided that the pseudosynovial fluid would be very complicated and scrapped it. An addition to the implant was a hydroxyapatite hydrogel coating to help promote osteointegration. This was also when we decided on an uncemented implant as this also helps with osteointegration. At this point we were also narrowing down material choices while figuring out which materials would work best in which place. We had many choices such as zirconia toughened alumina, ultra high molecular weight polyethylene, porcelain fused zirconia, and hydroxyapatite polyetherketone.