Flow characteristics of acrylic bone cements.

Flow properties of Simplex, Zimmer Regular, Zimmer LVC, and Sulfix bone cements were measured as functions of time between two and five minutes after mixing. The mass flowrates measured for Zimmer Regular and Simplex were quite similar in the temperature range of 20.0 degrees -23.3 degrees. At 18.3 degrees Simplex had approximately double the flowrate of Zimmer Regular two minutes after mixing. The flowrate for LVC was approximately four times that measured for Zimmer Regular at 20.0 degrees. Sulfix displayed the greatest sensitivity of flowrate with temperature; at 18.3 degrees its flow characteristics were similar to those of LVC, and at 23.3 degrees it behaved more like Simplex and Zimmer Regular. All cements demonstrated substantial relative increases in flowrates with only slight increases in pressure; Sulfix was the most pressure sensitive. Set times for Zimmer, LVC, and Sulfix were virtually identical, ranging from a mean of 11 minutes (at 18.3 degrees) to 7.5 minutes (at 23.3 degrees). Simplex had considerably longer set times, averaging 15.8 minutes (at 18.3 degrees) and 9.4 minutes (at 23.3 degrees). Although Simplex demonstrated the greatest sensitivity of set time with temperature (almost double that measured for the other 3 cements), it did not show the greatest sensitivity of flowrate with temperature.