Development of Ti–Nb and Ti–Nb–Fe beta alloys from TiH₂ powders

ABSTRACT

Ti–Nb β alloys are a promising alternative as an implant material due to their good properties and low Young’s modulus, compared to other Ti-alloys currently employed as biomaterials. In this study, three materials of the Ti–Nb and Ti–Nb–Fe systems were produced by powder metallurgy techniques starting from TiH₂ (TH) powder. Several sintering cycles were employed to evaluate the H₂ elimination and the effect of sintering temperature on densification and fraction of β-Ti phase. Also, the influence of alloying element size using two kinds of Fe powder was evaluated. The highest loss of H₂ was achieved by decreasing heating rate at the temperature range of hydride decomposition. SEM images and XRD results show mainly a β-Ti phase for TH–40Nb and TH–5Fe–25Nb samples. The TH–12Nb sample shows (α + β) microstructure. Fe addition with smaller particle size seems to improve the diffusion of Nb into Ti which promotes a higher β-phase fraction and sample homogeneity.

KEYWORDS:

• β-Ti alloys
• Titanium hydride
• biomaterials
• low cost titanium alloy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Caterina Chirico completed her studies of Master’s Degree in Materials Science and Engineering in 2017. Nowadays she works as research assistant and Ph.D. student at the Group of Powder Technology of the University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain. Her research areas are mainly focused on the Development of titanium beta alloys (Ti–Nb) by Powder metallurgy.

Dr S. A. Tsipas, received her M.Eng. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Imperial College (London, U.K.) and completed her Ph.D. in at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy in the University of Cambridge. Currently she works as Assistant Professor in Powder Metallurgy research group at UC3M. Her research interests are design and processing of Ti and Ti alloys and porous materials by powder metallurgy as well as surface engineering.

Dr Fatih Toptan is an Assistant Professor at University of Minho, Mechanical Engineering Department. He received a B.S. degree in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science from Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. He is member of the research group on micro/nano technologies and smart systems of the Centre of MicroElectroMechanical Systems (CMEMS-UMinho) at University of Minho and IBTN/Br, Brazilian branch of the Institute of Biomaterials, Tribocorrosion and Nanomedicine. His research interests are focused on the development of metal matrix composites and investigation of the degradation mechanisms of those materials particularly due to wear, corrosion and tribocorrosion.

Dr Elena Gordo is Ph.D. in Mining Engineering (1998) from Technical University of Madrid, Spain. She is full professor of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of the University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, and Head of the Group of Powder Technology of this university. Her research is mainly focused in the design and processing of titanium alloys and hardmetals by powder metallurgy.

ORCID

S. Tsipas http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7590-2795

Additional information

Funding

The authors would like to thank the funding provided for this research by the Regional Government of Madrid (programme MULTIMAT-CHALLENGE-CM, ref. S2013/MIT2862), and by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain (programme MINECO, ref. PCIN-2016-123 project BIOHYB, and Ramón y Cajal contract RYC-2014-15014).