title: Design and fabrication of a metastable β-type titanium alloy with ultralow elastic modulus and high strength.
abstract: Titanium and its alloys have become the most attractive implant materials due to their high corrosion resistance, excellent biocompatibility and relatively low elastic modulus. However, the current Ti materials used for implant applications exhibit much higher Young's modulus (50 ~ 120 GPa) than human bone (~30 GPa). This large mismatch in the elastic modulus between implant and human bone can lead to so-called "stress shielding effect" and eventual implant failure. Therefore, the development of β-type Ti alloys with modulus comparable to that of human bone has become an ever more pressing subject in the area of advanced biomedical materials. In this study, an attempt was made to produce a bone-compatible metastable β-type Ti alloy. By alloying and thermo-mechanical treatment, a metastable β-type Ti-33Nb-4Sn (wt. %) alloy with ultralow Young's modulus (36 GPa, versus ~30 GPa for human bone) and high ultimate strength (853 MPa) was fabricated. We believe that this method can be applied to developing advanced metastable β-type titanium alloys for implant applications. Also, this approach can shed light on design and development of novel β-type titanium alloys with large elastic limit due to their high strength and low elastic modulus.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P. R. China.|Institute for Advanced Materials, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Shun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Qingkun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xinqing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte NC 28223-0001, USA.
authors.forename: Qiuming
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Huibin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xu