International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

Commonly used metallic biomaterials are titanium and its alloys, cobalt-based alloys and 316L stainless steel. Titanium alloys are reference materials in biomedical applications due to their desirable properties such as excellent mechanical properties and good biocompatibility. Since presence of different metals can significantly alter the properties of titanium it is usually alloyed with other metals, including the zirconium. In this work Ti-20Zr was prepared by powder metallurgy by mixing the powders in a ball mill and sintering in a tube furnace under argon atmosphere. Microscopic analysis with the light microscope showed that the porosity decreased with increasing temperature and sintering time. Scanning electron microanalysis with energy-dispersive spectrometry showed the two-phase microstructure of the sintered alloy. Microhardness was determined by Vickers method. A longer sintering time and a higher sintering temperature resulted in higher microhardness values.

Titanium as a raw material for production is very expensive due to its high price and the complex production process. One of the successful alternatives for the production of titanium alloys and final products is powder metallurgy technology. In this work, a Ti-20Zr alloy for biomedical applications was produced using the powder metallurgy process. The density values determined for the compacts depend on the compression pressure. Namely, the compressibility of the powder mixture increases with increasing compaction pressure. A higher sintering temperature as well as a longer sintering time are more favourable to obtain higher values for the sintered density. Similarly, the compression coefficient is lower for samples compacted at higher pressure, while its value increases with increasing sintering temperature. The volume change in the volume of the sample is more pronounced after sintering at higher temperature and shorter time.