Abstract

Total hip arthroplasty is a surgical procedure that replaces the hip joint by artificial materials. Here, the morphological and mechanical properties of the scar tissues that form around implants composed of either polymer and metal or ceramic are compared to native tissue removed during an initial total hip arthroplasty. Immuno-histological analyses of the samples showed different hierarchical structures of the tissues over three scales: the fiber, the fascicle and the tissue scales. At the tissue scale, micro-tensile tests were performed on millimetric samples and their non-linear elastic responses were identified by either an exponential law or an Ogden third-order constitutive model. At the fiber scale, a patient-specific micro-scale finite element model including the measured morphological parameters and the identified Ogden constitutive models for the fiber and for the matrix composed of a mixture of fibers in ground substance.