Manufacturing, compressive behaviour and elastic modulus of Ti matrix syntactic foam fabricated by powder metallurgy

Ti matrix syntactic foam has potential in the orthopaedic application because of its good biocompatibility, corrosion resistance and varied elastic modulus. Ti matrix syntactic foams embedded with thick-wall ceramic microspheres (CMs) were prepared using a powder metallurgy method. The structure, compressive behaviour and elastic modulus of Ti matrix syntactic foam embedded with thick-wall CMs were analyzed and compared with those embedded with thin-wall CMs. Results show that the compressive strength of Ti matrix syntactic foam increases with the increase of the volume fraction of CMs clearly. However, the strength increase would not increase the elastic moduli obviously which are still similar with those of human bone.