Polyethylene fatigue behavior

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Pruitt L., and L. Bailey. 1998. Factors affecting the near-threshold fatigue behavior of surgical grade ultra high molecular weight polyethylene. Polymer 39 1545-1553. 

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Pruitt LA. Deformation, yielding, fracture and fatigue behavior of conventional and highly cross-linked ultra high molecular weight polyethylene. Biomaterials 2005 26(8) 15. 

The rate dependence of fatigue strength demands carefiil consideration of the potential for heat buildup in both the fatigue test and in service. Generally, since the buildup is a function of the viscous component of the material, the materials that tend toward viscous behavior will also display sensitivity to cyclic load frequency. Thus, TPs, particularly the crystalline polymers like polyethylene that are above their glass-transition temperatures, are expected to be more sensitive to the cyclic load rate, and highly crosslinked plastics or glass fiber reinforced TS plastics are much less sensitive to the frequency of load. 

Connelly GM, Rimnac CM, Wright TM, Hertzberg RW, Manson JA (1984), Fatigue crack propagation behavior of ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene J Orthop Res, 2, 119-125. 

Confirmation of the general fatigue superiority of semicrystalline polymers is implicit in studies of a-N behavior at frequencies low enough to minimize temperature rises (169). While the ratios of the endurance limit to tensile strength for typical amorphous polymers (polystyrene, PMMA, and cellulose acetate) are approximately 0.2, values for nylon-6,6, acetal resin, and polyterafluoroethylene are 0.3, 0.5, and 0.5, respectively. At a low frequency, polyethylene (Mw > 50,000) exhibits no failure after 5 x 10 cycles, even at the relatively high alternating stress... 

S.A. Atwood, D.W. Van Citters, E.W. Patten, J. Fm-manski, M.D. Ries, LA. Pruitt. Tradeoffs amongst fatigue, wear, and oxidation resistance of cross-linked ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials 4(7), 1033-1045 October (2011). 

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