Wear Particles of Carbon/Carbon Composite Artificial Hip Joints

The carbon/carbon composite wear particles generated from a hip joint simulator were separated.The size,morphology and thickness of the particles were tested by laser particle size analyzer,scanning electron microscope and 3-D profiler,respectively.The results show that the particles are 0.3-93.9μm in size and the morphology and the thickness of the particles distributes regularly according to their sizes.The particles whose sizes are larger than 30μm are carbon fibers with a constant thickness.The particles whose thicknesses are in a broad range with medium size(3-30μm) show irregular morphology and complex boundary.The particles whose thicknesses are in the range of sub-micrometers are less than 3μm in size and have a spherical or circular shape.Based on the experimental results,the evolvement of the wear particles in the wear process is explained.