Difference of Wear Behavior Between Ti-29Nb-13Ta-4.6Zr Alloy and Ti-6A1–4V Eli Alloy for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

A biomedical β-type titanium, Ti-29Nb-13Ta-4.6Zr alloy (TNTZ), exhibits good biological and mechanical biocompatibilities due to containing non-toxic elements and lower Young’s modulus than that of a conventional (α+β)-type titanium alloy, Ti-6A1–4V ELI alloy (Ti64). One of the expected applications for TNTZ is spinal fixation applications. However, screws and rods are contacted each other in this kind of application, while titanium alloys generally exhibit poor wear resistance. Therefore, the wear characteristics of TNTZ and Ti64 were investigated in this study. Balls and discs made of TNTZ and Ti64 were prepared for a ball-on-disc wear test. As the results of microstructural analysis, it was found that the morphologies of wear tracks and debris of TNTZ are different from those of Ti64 because different wear mechanism is predominant in each alloy.