Light, resilient and wear-resistant – plain bearings for prostheses and ortheses

Prostheses and orthopaedic braces are intended to make life easier and increase personal mobility; the requirements they have to meet are correspondingly high. The material must withstand the considerable loads placed on it and not be so heavy that it makes the wearer tired. It must be capable of being used everywhere: during swimming in salt or chlorine water, in sand, at high and low temperatures. It must be ensured that creams and medical products cannot impair the functionality of the material or place undue stress on it. Bearings made of polymers from igus are made for precisely such applications and are ideal for constructions with demanding requirements.

Advantages of iglidur plain bearings:

iglidur W300

iglidur bar stock

Individual component

95% less wear in hip prosthesis

iglidur Z bearings ensure maintenance-free, extremely durable bearing points with excellent dampening on the main axes of this hip prosthesis. The resulting forces occurring in the prosthesis during oscillating movement are reliably transmitted by the bearings without any noticeable increase in play. Tests in the igus test laboratory have shown: iglidur material used for this purpose exhibits 95% less wear than PA66 and PTFE.

Delicate movements with electric hand prosthesis

High requirements placed on plain bearings in finger and hand prostheses. They must have a low coefficient of friction, require no additional lubrication, be usable for soft shafts and be vibration-dampening and resistant to chemicals. At the same time, they should enable a functional and aesthetic design. All axes involved in the movement were therefore equipped with iglidur J bearings.

Fast assembly and long service life

This joint prosthesis has been equipped with iglidur J piston rings, which can be clipped to the piston due to their opening and flexible material. This makes the installation very easy and decreases assembly time. Previously, PTFE guide bands were used on the pistons, but they wear a lot faster and therefore have to be replaced more frequently.

All products are tested for wear and load capacity under real-life conditions in the igus test laboratory, the largest in the industry. The results are incorporated into our online tools for service life calculation and enable exact predictions of durability.

Upon request, igus performs customer tests to check product use under specific conditions.
 

Product brochure as PDF

Important information on our products and services for  prostheses & ortheses.

igus online tools

Configure desired product online, calculate service life, reduce process costs

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