Creep behavior of hand-mixed Simplex P bone cement under cyclic tensile loading.

Acrylic cement, used for the fixation of total hip replacements and other orthopedic implants, is a subject of renewed scientific interest as a result of recent hypotheses about dynamic, long-term mechanical failure mechanisms suspected to play a role in prosthetic loosening. Little is known, however, about the long-term mechanical behavior of cement. In this study, the dynamic creep deformation of hand mixed acrylic cement was examined in laboratory tests. Strain patterns found represented the familiar creep process consisting of a primary, a secondary, and a tertiary creep phase. Specimens dynamically loaded with a maximum stress of 3 MPa from 0 were subject to creep of about 50% of the elastic strain after 250 000 loading cycles. A linear relationship between the logarithmic values of the creep-strain and the number of loading cycles was found. Specimens exposed to higher loads showed significantly higher creep-strains. No relationship could be established between the strain levels and the porosity of the specimens. Specimens dynamically loaded with a maximal stress of 7 or 11 MPa from 0 failed during the tests. The number of loading cycles to failure was similar to fatigue strength data reported in earlier literature.