Friction and Wear Behavior of Ti-6Al-7Nb Biomaterial Alloy

Abstract

Titanium has been increasingly applied to biomedical application because of its improved mechanical characteristics, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. However their application remains limited, due to the low strength and poor wear resistance of unalloyed titanium. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the friction and wear behavior of high-strength titanium alloys: Ti-6Al-7Nb used in femoral stem (total hip prosthesis). The oscillating friction and wear tests have been carried out in ambient air with oscillating tribotester in accord with standards ISO 7148, ASTM G99-95a, ASTM G 133-95 under different conditions of normal applied load (3, 6 and 10 N) and sliding speed (1, 15 and 25 mm·s−1), and as a counter pair we used the ball of 100C 6, 10 mm of diameter. The surface morphology of the titanium alloys has been characterized by SEM, EDAX, micro hardness, roughness analysis measurements. The behav-ior observed for both samples suggests that the wear and friction mechanism during the test is the same for Ti alloys, and to increase resistance to wear and friction of biomedical titanium alloys used in total hip prosthesis (femoral stems) the surface coating and treatment are required.