Hip Science: Better Bone Implants

ke4roh writes "Space, medicine, and invention often cross paths. In this case, the invention is a new artificial hip. Scientists are researching ways to manufacture strong and porous ceramics with the benefit of microgravity - subtracting the effects of convection and settling from their experiment. In the end, they hope to offer a permanent artificial hip - much more user-friendly than today's models that come unglued and require replacement after only 5-10 years of use. It's just one more way space research helps to make life better on Earth."

Comments

Yes But

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I know they're trying to reduce the effect of buoyant (natural) convection by going into the microgravity environment. And, pure density-driven convection due to the differences in density of air and molten ceramic will also be minimized in space.

But if there are temperature gradients in the molten ceramic, they might still have to contend with molten bubbles migrating due to thermocapillary (Marangoni) convection. The surface tension of the air/liquid interface is generally a function of temperature.

Good luck to them, anyway.