Mechanical properties of low modulus β titanium alloys designed from the electronic approach

Titanium alloys dedicated to biomedical applications may display both clinical and mechanical biocompatibility. Based on nontoxic elements such as Ti, Zr, Nb, Ta, they should combine high mechanical resistance with a low elastic modulus close to the bone elasticity (E=20 GPa) to significantly improve bone remodelling and osseointegration processes. These elastic properties can be reached using both lowering of the intrinsic modulus by specific chemical alloying and superelasticity effects associated with a stress-induced phase transformation from the BCC metastable beta phase to the orthorhombic alpha(″) martensite. It is shown that the stability of the beta phase can be triggered using a chemical formulation strategy based on the electronic design method initially developed by Morinaga. This method is based on the calculation of two electronic parameters respectively called the bond order (B(o)) and the d orbital level (M(d)) for each alloy. By this method, two titanium alloys with various tantalum contents, Ti-29Nb-11Ta-5Zr and Ti-29Nb-6Ta-5Zr (wt%) were prepared. In this paper, the effect of the tantalum content on the elastic modulus/yield strength balance has been investigated and discussed regarding the deformation modes. The martensitic transformation beta-->alpha(″) has been observed on Ti-29Nb-6Ta-5Zr in contrast to Ti-29Nb-11Ta-5Zr highlighting the chemical influence of the Ta element on the initial beta phase stability. A formulation strategy is discussed regarding the as-mentioned electronic parameters. Respective influence of cold rolling and flash thermal treatments (in the isothermal omega phase precipitation domain) on the tensile properties has been investigated.