Decision-Making for Selection of Most Suitable Materials for Biomedical Applications

摘要

The selection of an optimal material needed for the design and development of various biomedical implants is very complex and challenging task today. Such implants are necessary for orthopedic applications as substitutes of various human joints like hip, knee, ankle, shoulder, etc. Hence, a simple mathematical and logical tool is needed to enable the decision-makers to take correct decisions in selecting the most suitable materials in spite of many selection attributes. This paper presents the applications of some novel Multi-attribute Decision-Making (MADM) techniques like AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process), WPM (Weighted Product Method), and TOPSIS (Techniques of Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution), etc., to accelerate the selection process of biomaterials for hip joint implants and enhance selection confidence and objectivity. The material selection is mainly based on their preferential ranking in all the methods. It is found that the Metal on Metal (MoM) pair is the best candidate for the hip joint implants among all other pairs such as Ceramic on Ceramic (CoC), Ceramic on Polyethylene (CoP), and Metal on Polyethylene (MoP) because it is at the top rank in all the methods.