Crystallographic properties and mechanical behaviour of titanium hydride layers grown on titanium implants

Abstract

Commercially pure titanium for bone-anchored dental implants, subjected to a sand-blasting and acid-etching surface treatment, has been mechanically tested and analysed by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy observations. A fcc titanium hydride layer grows on the polycrystalline titanium substrate with various epitaxial relationships, whose grains also show epitaxial relationships with each other. Indentations, flexion tests and dislocation analyses indicate that this hydride layer can be plastically deformed.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Institut Straumann AG for providing the samples, Institut de Matériaux (IMX), Ecole Polytechniue Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), for indentation facilities and Centre Interdisciplinaire de Microscopie Electronique, EPFL, and Centre d’Elaboration de Matériaux et d’Etudes Structurales, CNRS, Toulouse for electron microscopy facilities. D. C. thanks EPFL for granting him a leave of absence to pursue part of this research in Lausanne. The financial support from Fonds National Suisse pour la Recherche Scientifique (grant 2134-062611.00/1) is gratefully acknowledged.