Preparation of a ternary alloy of the Ti-Nb-Ta system for further use in medicine

Abstract

Titanium alloys are widely used in orthopedics for several decades due to their excellent mechanical properties, excellent corrosion resistance and favorable biocompatibility [1,2]. However, the use of alloys, such as Ti-6Al-4V with a high Young's modulus (E), is not the best solution in load-bearing cells, as stress-shielding occurs due to a mismatch between the rigidity of the implant and the surrounding bone (about 115 GPa for Ti- 6Al-4V), which is significantly higher than the modulus of elasticity of the cortical bone (10-30 GPa) [1.10]. Moreover, these alloys have carcinogenic inclusions such as Al, V. To date, there is a need to obtain titanium-based alloys that do not contain carcinogenic, cytotoxic components and meet biomechanical requirements for the implant. In this work, a superelastic alloy of the Ti-Nb-Ta system is obtained by double remeltingin the vacuum arc furnace. The microstructure was investigated on optical microscope, mechanical properties were measured by universal testmachine Shimadzu AGX and hardness was investigated on microhardness tester Durascan 20. The authors concluded that the resulting alloy of the Ti-Nb-Ta system is suitable for use in medicine.