Multi-station hip and knee simulator machines

Simulation of human joint motion for the purpose of testing and evaluating prosthetic devices prior to clinical deployment is essential to assure the successful outcome of such surgical procedures. AMTI’s multiaxis simulator machines provide the ideal environment for in-vitro wear, fatigue, and usability testing on a variety of prosthetic joint components.

AMTI’s twelve station hip simulator machine played a prominent part in the discovery of the fundamental nature of the wear of UHDPE acetabular components and is used world wide for the evaluation of hip implant designs. The hip simulator machine meets the ASTM-1714-96 standard for hip implant testing.

AMTI’s six station knee simulator machine is also widely used by prosthetic device manufacturers and researchers around the world. In our continued effort to better serve the needs of the implant testing community AMTI has recently developed a new control system which will be incorporated in all of our testing machines. This control system allows the selection of force or displacement modes of control thus satisfying the ISO 14243 standards for knee implant testing.

All of AMTI’s simulator machines provide programmable motion control, which can simulate the subtleties of human joint motion while simultaneously testing six (knee) or twelve (hip) implant components under identical conditions.

Multiaxis load frame and simulator machine

AMTI has recently introduced a flexible single station joint simulator machine (Force5) which may be configured for a variety of joint simulation tasks. In its standard configuration, this machine has four degrees of freedom and may be used as a general purpose multiaxis testing machine.

With the addition of fixturing and a fifth passive degree of freedom the machine becomes an ideal knee simulator machine which may be programmed to provide either force or displacement control for the AP motion meeting the ISO14243 knee testing standard.

AMTI’s abduction actuator may be mounted on the machine to provide a programmable abduction axis for hip motion simulation. Other applications include TMJ prosthetic testing, dental implant testing, elbow joint testing and spine component testing.

Multi-station Pin on Disk friction and wear machine

The AMTI OrthoPOD is a six-station pin-on-plate wear-testing machine. Unlike a conventional pin-on-disk machine the OrthoPod provides the means to program complex motion paths which play an important part in the wear of anisotropic materials like polymers and composites. The OrthoPod has six semi-independent sample stations where each station will accommodate a pin and plate sample pair.