Engineering of a multi-station shoulder simulator

This work aimed to engineer a multi-station shoulder simulator in order to wear test shoulder prostheses using recognized shoulder activities of daily living. A bespoke simulator was designed, built and subject to commissioning trials before a first wear test was conducted. Five JRI Orthopaedics Reverse Shoulder VAIOS 42mm prostheses were tested for 2.0 million cycles and a mean wear rate and standard deviation of 14.2 +/- 2.1 mm(3)/10(6) cycles measured for the polymeric glenoid components. This result when adjusted for prostheses diameters and test conditions showed excellent agreement with results from hip simulator studies of similar materials in a lubricant of bovine serum. The Newcastle Shoulder Simulator is the first multi-station shoulder simulator capable of applying physiological motion and loading for typical activities of daily living.