Structure and Mechanical Properties of the New Ti30Ta20Nb Biomedical Alloy

In order to better understand the relationship between parameters of a mechanical alloying process and microstructure, especially the structure of porosity, some research and studies were carried out. The current study investigates the possibility to prepare the porous materials by mechanical alloying and annealing. A high-energy ball-milling process in the planetary ball mill Fritch PULVERISETTE 7 premium line was used for the solid-state synthesis of the single phase powders for titanium based biomedical alloy. The influence of the high-energy ball-milling time on the structure and morphology of the synthesized precursors after annealing was investigated. Additionally, the effect of the variable time of the ball-milling on the structural characteristics, pore morphology and mechanical properties of a biomedical Ti30Ta20Nb (wt.%) was investigated as well. This study confirms the predominance of the titanium β phase and also the presence of the titanium α phase. The analysis of the diffraction patters obtained using the Rietveld method showed that when the milling time increases, the lattice parameters for the tested samples become reduced. Summing up, it should be pointed out that the areas of pure unreacted titanium still exist in the material. These areas were correlated to the results of an X-ray diffraction analysis. This research starts the process of converting mechanical alloying into a production method which could become an alternative to the space holder technique for the new titanium alloys used for medical applications.