Funded Projects and Research Areas      

     Micro-mechanical Fatigue Failure in Cemented Total Hip Arthroplasty Investigation Using Acoustic Emission, 2002 – 2005 (For more details Click here)

This project is funded by the Whitaker Foundation.  The goal of this project research is to develop a better understanding of the micro-mechanical failure behavior of total hip arthroplasty. An acoustic emission based noninvasive techniques will be developed that utilize rigorous experimental testing protocols to quantitatively measure the onset, accumulation rate, progression history, and the locations of micro-mechanical failures in the hip prosthesis under accelerated cyclic loading conditions in real time. Based on these data, solution to when, how, and where micromechanical failures initiate and develop will be investigated.     

      Nondestructive evaluation of spot-weld quality, 1999 - 2000

This project was conduced by the request of MTD Products, Inc.  The objective of this project was to reduce and eventually eliminate the destructive testing of frames in controlling the quality of the spot-weld, which is one of the main machine processes in that facility.  The aims are to identify and establish a nondestructive evaluation system to determine the weld quality of spots just-in-time, hence to save the frames from costly destructive testing through adoption of a current nondestructive evaluation technique.

        Use of the Acoustic Emission Technique to Study Cement Failure in Loaded Hip Prostheses, 1999 – 2000

This project was sponsored by a Faculty Research Grant of The University of Memphis.  The objective of this project is to use the acoustic emission (AE) method to conduct a pilot study of using acoustic emission technique to investigate feasibility of the loosening of hip prostheses. The research efforts involved collection of real time AE signals and their processing to locate the failure positions. 

        Design and optimization of a prototype of kinestatic charge detector for megavoltage portal imaging, 1999 - 2001

This project was sponsored by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.  In this work, classical electrodynamics and thermodynamics was applied as an alternative engineering approach to model the KCD working environment, design and optimize the prototype and the structural parameters using the current KCD gantry systems at the University of Tennessee, Memphis and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.        

        The effects of interface failure on the loosening of femoral component of total hip arthroplasty, 2001 -

The objective of this project is to establish a baseline of vibration technique in detecting the loosening of femoral component of total hip arthroplasty.

        The effects of Implant design on the fatigue performance in real time using acoustic emission technique, 2002 –

This is cooperative project with Smith & Nephew, Inc. The objective of this project is to compare various AE signatures of different hip implant designs, hence, to establish a noninvasive evaluation technique and to improve the quality of implant products.

 

 

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