Effect of heat treatment on dry sliding wear of Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-6Al-7Nb implant alloys

摘要

The application of Titanium alloys is more attractive today in the field of biomedical implant materials due to their superior biocompatibility and strength. Implant wear is a common phenomenon which is resulted due to high friction between artificial materials which is much higher than healthy and natural joints. The corresponding wear of the implant results in the accumulation of wear debris in the body tissues which results in inflammation, pain and loosening of implant resulting in shorter life period of the implant. Solution treatment of the alloy is one of the techniques to improve the sliding wear properties of the alloy. In this work, both the Ti-6Al-4V and the Ti-6Al-7Nb implant alloy materials are subjected to heat treatment above their transformation temperature followed by cooling in furnace, air and water. An improvement in wear rate was observed under different heat treatment condition and also high wear resistance of Ti-6Al-7Nb is reported.