Low temperature carburised austenitic stainless steel for metal-on-metal tribological contact

S-phase layers formed on biomedical grade austenitic stainless steels have demonstrated significantly enhanced in-vitro wear and corrosion behaviour. To date, most of these tribo-corrosion studies on S-phase treated alloys were conducted using a polycrystalline alumina or cemented tungsten carbide ball as the counterface material. Testing S-phase against S-phase is both scientifically interesting and technologically important in view of their potential applications for the articulating surfaces of metal-on-metal joint prostheses. In this work, biomedical grade 316LVM discs together with AISI 316 balls were low temperature carburised. In-vitro corrosion-wear testing using an S-phase engineered ball against an S-phase engineered disc was performed. Such testing was also complemented with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, potentiodynamic and cytotoxicity tests. The results have shown that the carburised 316LVM alloy was found to have good in-vitro cytocompatibility and an augmented corrosion and corrosion-wear resistance when compared with the untreated alloy.