Does surface wettability influence the friction and wear of large-diameter CoCrMo alloy hip resurfacings?

The role of surface tension in the lubrication of metal-on-metal (CoCrMo alloy) hip resurfacings has been investigated to try to explain why all metal joints fail to be lubricated with simple water-based lubricants (sodium carboxymethyl cellulose), which have similar rheology to synovial fluid, but are lubricated with the same fluid with the addition of a proportion of bovine serum. As part of this study, surfactants, in the form of detergents, when added to carboxymethyl cellulose, have been shown to produce a predominantly fluid-film lubrication mechanism with friction even lower than the biological lubricant containing serum. Friction factors were reduced by 80% when a detergent was added to the lubricant.