Fretting Biocorrosion Behaviour of Titanium-Zirconia composites in Foetal Bovine Serum

This work aims at studying the fretting biocorrosion response of newly developed Ti-6Al-4V/ZrO₂ in simulated body fluid. Ti-6Al-4V alloy with different volume fractions of ZrO₂ produced via powder metallurgy techniques were spark plasma sintered to produce Ti-6Al-4V composites with improved properties. The microstructures of the resulting spark plasma sintered composites were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Fretting corrosion tests were conducted for each material composition with a special device used for fretting corrosion investigations with a cylinder-on-flat configuration. The tests were done in foetal bovine serum maintained at ambient temperature. Open circuit potential, dissipated energy and coefficient of friction were monitored throughout the experiments. The results show that the microstructures produced after zirconia additions were very different from those observed in pure Ti-6Al-4V. The presence of zirconia promoted the formation of globular zirconia-rich agglomerates throughout the matrix, leading to more improved fretting biocorrosion properties of Ti-6Al-4V.