Corrosion, wear, and tribocorrosion behavior of a novel biomedical implant Ti-20Zr-10Nb-4Ta alloy

For a new type biomedical titanium alloy, the tribocorrosion should be investigated. So, in this paper, the tribocorrosion behavior of the Ti-20Zr-10Nb-4Ta alloy in Hank’s solution was investigated, and the corrosion and wear behaviors were also investigated. The corrosion results implied that the Ti-20Zr-10Nb-4Ta alloy has a better corrosion resistance than the widely used Ti-6Al-4V alloy, the corrosion rate is lower than the Ti-20Zr-10Nb alloy. During tribocorrosion tests, the corrosion resistance of the Ti-20Zr-10Nb-4Ta alloy was significantly decreased due to the wear-accelerated corrosion. The wear volumes of the Ti-20Zr-10Nb-4Ta alloy increased with increasing applied loads without or with electrochemical corrosion. And the results indicated that the corrosion-accelerated wear during the tribocorrosion. The ratios of the Wa/Wc are much greater than 10, showed that the dominant tribocorrosion mechanism is mechanical wear removal with wear-accelerated corrosion. Through observation the SEM morphologies of worn surface of Ti-20Zr-10Nb-4Ta alloy, the main wear mechanism is abrasive.