Environmental fatigue of superelastic NiTi wire with two surface finishes

Surface finish of NiTi is widely perceived to affect its biocompatibility and corrosion fatigue performance. The aim of this work was to find out, whether a carefully engineered surface oxide shows any beneficial effect over electropolished surface on the fatigue performance of superelastic NiTi wire mechanically cycled in simulated biofluid. Series of corrosion and environmental fatigue tensile tests was performed on superelastic NiTi wire with two different surface finishes frequently used in medical device industry. Open Circuit Potential reflecting the activity of chemical reactions on the surface of the wire cycled in electrochemical cell was continuously monitored during the fatigue tests. Microcracks at the surface of the fatigued NiTi wires were characterized by SEM and TEM. It was found that the carefully engineered 70 nm thick TiO2 oxide provides the NiTi wire with similar level of protection against the static corrosion as the less than 10 nm thin natural oxide on the electropolished wire and that it does not have any positive effect on its performance in environmental fatigue tests, whatsoever. On the contrary, the wire covered by the carefully engineered 70 nm thick TiO2 oxide displayed systematically poorer fatigue performance upon tensile cycling under specific critical loading conditions (strain amplitude <0.5% at large mean strains 1-7%).