Journal of Materials Research and Technology (Jul 2022)

Simultaneous enhancement of anti-friction and wear resistance performances via porous substrate and FeCoNiTiAl high entropy alloy coating of artificial joint materials

  • Dongni Liu,
  • Hongcai Xie,
  • Zhichao Ma,
  • Wei Zhang,
  • Hongwei Zhao,
  • Luquan Ren

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 19
pp. 2907 – 2915

Abstract

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It remains an extreme challenge to fabricate artificial joint materials with applicability of mechanical properties compared with bones, superior biocompatibility, anti-friction and wear resistance performances. Here, we report an effective strategy to simultaneously enhance the anti-friction and wear resistance performance of Ti6Al4V substrate through optimizing the porosity and sputtering a high-entropy alloy (HEA) coating. The progressive scratch experiments are carried out to equivalently imitate the scratch deformation process induced by hard particles and evaluate the anti-friction and wear resistance performances, which directly reveal the significantly decreased coefficient of friction (COF) of porous substrate based on suitable pore diameter covered with HEA coating compared with pure Ti6Al4V substrate. The porous design is verified to effectively weaken the stress shielding effect and simultaneously improve the hydrodynamic lubrication. Attributed to the coupling effects of pore structure-induced “flexibility” and HEA coating-induced surface hardening, the composite structure exhibits low COF value, wear volume and enhanced scratch resistance. The design concept would facilitate the development of novel medical implant materials with requirements of anti-friction and wear resistance.

Keywords