Abstract:Ti β-alloys based on the Ti-Nb alloy system exhibit growing interest in the biomaterial community. The addition of small amounts of Fe and Cr further increases β-phase stability, improving the properties of Ti-Nb alloy. Production of such alloys by powder metallurgy (PM) starting from elemental powders has the problem of lacking homogeneity due to restricted solid state diffusion. To improve mixing and diffusion of the elements mechanical alloying is used. This paper studies the microstructural characterization and mechanical properties obtained by bending tests of Ti-Nb-(Fe-Cr) alloys obtained by conventional PM with elemental powder mixture and mechanical alloying. The mechanical alloying allows a much more homogeneous composition and particle morphology, characterized by rounded and significantly enlarged powder particles. In the sintered samples two phases appear, namely alpha and beta phase. The α phase appears at the grain boundaries and in lamellae growing from the edge inward, formed mainly by Ti and lower Nb content than nominal. The beta phase is enriched with Nb, Fe and Cr. The addition of the both latter elements increases considerably mechanical properties of Ti-Nb alloys, providing increased ductility.Keywords: beta Ti, Ti-Nb alloys, powder metallurgy, Fe and Cr additions
Introduction:Titanium alloys have demonstrated properties attractive for biomedical applications due to their lower modulus, superior biocompatibility and excellent corrosion resistance compared to stainless steels and Co-Cr alloys. Ti6Al4V has been become the most used implant materials, but it is known that V and Al are toxic for the human body 1, 2. type titanium alloys with lower modulus of elasticity and greater strength have been developed recently and it has been reported that Ti-Nb alloys exhibit complete biocompatibility. The presence of titanium body centered cubic crystal structure ( phase) at room temperature cause a decreasing of elastic modulus, improving the stress shielding problem. Therefore, β titanium alloys are promising materials for bio-applications 3-5. Multicomponent titanium alloys can be divided into , + and -Ti, and usually the equation of Aluminum equivalent (Al eq ) and Molybdenum equivalent (Mo eq ) are applied to define the type of alloy. The effect of Al eq and Mo eq on the strength and fracture toughness of titanium alloys has been studied and the result shows that the tensile strength of the alloy increases with increasing of aluminum equivalent and molybdenum equivalent and the fracture toughness decreases gradually 6, 7. The addition of small amounts of Fe and Cr increase phase stability, therefore further improving the properties of theTi-Nb alloy. The Molybdenum equivalent can be calculated for Ti-Nb-Fe-Cr alloys in the simplified form: