Fretting wear study on Ti-Ca-P biocomposite in dry and simulated body fluid

In the present work, powder metallurgy processing was used to synthesize a titanium rich composite containing in situ formed bioactive calcium-phosphatic phases. The potential application of such a composite includes load-bearing implants. In view of the importance of friction and wear in biomedical applications, the present work was taken up to investigate the friction and wear properties of such Ti-Ca-P composite at fretting contact against bearing steel in simulated body fluid (SBF) environment. A comparison was also made with fretting behaviour in dry conditions. Tribological experiments were carried out on a biocomposite against bearing steel at different loads (2, 5 and 10 N) for 10,000 cycles with displacement stroke set to 80 mu m and at 10Hz frequency using a low amplitude reciprocatory fretting wear tester. In addition to reporting the measured tribological data, a major focus of the work was in understanding dominant wear mechanisms under dry ambient and physiological environment. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.