An important research goal in the field of biomaterials lies in the progressive amendment of in vivo tests with suitable in vitro experiments. Such approaches are gaining more significance nowadays because of an increasing demand on life sciences and the ethical issues bound to the sacrifice of animals for the sake of scientific research. Another advantage of transferring the experiments to the in vitro field is the possibility of accurately control the boundary conditions and experimental parameters in order to reduce the need of validation tests involving animals. With the aim to reduce the amount of needed in vivo studies for this cause, a short-time in vitro test procedure using instrumented load increase tests with superimposed environmental loading has been developed at TUD to assess the mechanical long-term durability of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) under fatigue loading in a biological environment.

生物材料领域的重要研究目标在于通过适当的体外实验逐步改进体内测试。由于对生命科学的需求不断增加以及为科学研究而牺牲动物的道德问题，这种方法在当今变得越来越重要。将实验转移到体外领域的另一个优势是可以精确控制边界条件和实验参数，从而减少涉及动物的验证测试的需求。为了减少针对该原因的体内研究所需的时间，我们建议在短期内进行体外研究 TUD已开发出使用仪器化负荷增加测试和叠加环境负荷的测试程序，以评估生物环境中疲劳负荷下超高分子量聚乙烯（UHMWPE）的机械长期耐久性。