骨移植に用いるゴムメタル製メッシュプレートの引張疲労特性に関する研究

抄録

Recently in Japan, degenerative intervertebral discs have a sign of epidemic as one of diseases caused by aging and lifestyle habits. Degenerative intervertebral discs include lumber disc herniation, intervertebral disc herniation and cervical disc herniation. Currently practiced treatments called spinal fusion surgery using pure titanium or titanium alloy implant products have the problem that the loads on the natural-bone of the human body are large and will cause overloading on healthy nature bones. GUM Metal has characteristics of lower elasticity rigidity, large elastic deformation, higher strength and biocompatibility etc. When it is used for implant applications, there is still problem like overloading on the natural-bone because of its high rigidity compared with the human bones. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to create more flexible meshed plates for implant applications from the viewpoints of elastic rigidity and volume density. Basic mesh shapes are designed, devised and applied for meshed GUM Metal plates using three dimensional (3D) CAD tools. Experimental evaluation on tensile fatigue characteristics of meshed GUM Metal plate specimens are carried out. Analytical approaches on stress evaluation are also executed through finite element method to obtain the S-N curve for fatigue characteristic evaluation.