Processing and mechanical properties of porous Ti–7.5Mo alloy

Titanium (Ti) and its alloys continue to be utilized extensively for skeletal repair and dental implants. Most metallic implant materials including pure Ti and Ti alloys used today are in their solid forms and are often much stiffer than human bone. However, the elastic modulus of Ti and Ti alloys can be reduced through the introduction of a porous structure, which may also provide new bone tissue integration and vascularization abilities. In the present study, porous Ti–7.5Mo alloy scaffolds made from ball-milled alloy particles and sintered at 1100 °C for 10, 15 and 20 h respectively were successfully prepared through a space-holder sintering method. In the sintered Ti–7.5Mo, no obvious diffraction peaks of elemental Mo remained after the sintering, and a duplex α + β microstructure was confirmed from the XRD pattern. The samples made from BM15 (the alloy particles ball-milled for 15 h) had higher relative density, compressive strength and elastic modulus performance than those from BM3 and BM30 (the alloy particles ball-milled for 3 and 30 h, respectively) when they were sintered under the same conditions. Moreover, the longer sintering time lead to the higher relative density and the greater compressive strength and modulus of the sample. In this work, the strength and modulus of the sintered porous Ti–7.5Mo conforms to the basic mechanical property requirement of cancellous bones.

► Porous Ti–7.5Mo was successfully prepared through a space-holder sintering method.
► The sintered Ti–7.5Mo is a duplex α + β microstructure.
► The mechanical properties of porous Ti–7.5Mo are comparable to those of natural bone.