Tribological behavior study of new titanium alloys for biomedical applications

Abstract

Developing new titanium alloys and studying their feasibility for dental implants and orthopedic prostheses has been essential to avoid side effects and additional expensive surgeries. The goal of this contribution is to report the tribological behavior of two groups of alloys developed via arc melting, Ti-15Zr and Ti-15Zr-5Mo. To compare the performance of the studied biomaterials, the surface preparation was performed using metallographic techniques. Subsequently, the XRD and microhardness tests were performed to complement the experiments. The tribological tests were accomplished with microscopic analysis to understand the surface modifications. The results indicated that both Ti-15Zr and Ti-15Zr-5Mo alloys showed promising potential, with ternary alloy presenting better performance at low load (1.5 N), with binary alloys presenting superior performance at higher load until 15 N.