Surface modification of Ti6Al4V titanium alloy for biomedical applications and its effect on tribological performance - A review

Since its first introduction in the 1950s, Ti6Al4V became the most favorable titanium alloy due to its attractive mechanical and physicochemical properties and is currently extensively used e.g. in biomedical industry. However, its poor tribological properties limit its use in orthopedic applications. Hence, a variety of attempts have been made in order to improve tribological performance of titanium alloys, especially focusing on surface modification. This paper represents an overview of surface modification techniques applied on Ti6Al4V alloy during the last 15 years. The effects of oxidizing, deposition of carbon-based amorphous coatings, nitrogen-based layers and other surface modification techniques have been reviewed. According to the provided information, the durability, efficiency and reliability of popular anti-wear coatings strongly depends not only on the type of surface modification, research methods or experiment setup, but also on the experiment conditions, such as sliding velocity or applied load. Due to that, it is recommended to develop unified standards for wear tests of biomedical alloys used in orthopedic-related applications, e.g. arthroplasty. © 2016 Advanced Study Center Co. Ltd.