Improvement of the fatigue life of titanium alloys for biomedical devices through microstructural control

Abstract

A limited number of reports exist regarding the systematic investigation or comparison of the fatigue strength of titanium alloys for medical devices, including plain, fretting and notch fatigue, for improvement through various treatments and processes, with respect to related microstructures. This article focuses on the changes and improvements in fatigue strength of newly developed β-type and practically used α + β-titanium alloys for medical devices through heat treatments, thermomechanical treatments and surface modifications.

Keywords::

• α + β type titanium alloys
• β-type titanium alloys
• biomedical devices
• crack initiation
• crack propagation
• fatigue limit
• fretting fatigue
• mechanical biocompatibility
• mechanical properties
• notch fatigue
• plain fatigue
• Young’s modulus

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Masaaki Nakai and Dr Harumi Tsutsumi at IMR, Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan) for their support of experiments, and Daido Steel Co., Ltd. (Nagoya, Japan) for their assistance in preparing the materials used in this research.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This study was supported in part by the Global COE Program ‘Materials Integration International Center of Education and Research, Tohoku University’, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT; Tokyo, Japan) and The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO; Tokyo, Japan), the collaborative project between Tohoku University and Kyusyu University on ‘Highly-functional Interface Science: Innovation of Biomaterials with Highly-functional Interface to Host and Parasite’, MEXT (Tokyo, Japan), The Light Metal Educational Foundation, Inc. (Osaka, Japan), the cooperative research program of Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan) and the cooperative research program of the Advanced Research Center of Metallic Glasses, Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.