ABSTRACT:
Ti-6Al-4V alloy has been in use as dental implants till date because of its favorable mechanical properties. However, it wears off over a period of time in the oral cavity. Bearing this problem in mind, this research aims at mitigating the wear failure of Ti-6Al-4V dental implant via isothermal treatment. The as-received Ti-6Al-4V was cut and machined into 30 mm × 25 mm × 3 mm for abrasive wear samples. The samples were solution heat-treated at 960 °C accompanied by the aging process at 480 °C for varying soaking times of 2, 4, 6, and 8 h. The samples for wear analysis were subjected to abrasive wear using a three-body abrasive wear test machine with varying loads of 5 and 15 N, and silica sand was used as the abrasive medium. From the result, the wear rate of the heat-treated titanium alloy increased with the applied load, and the samples aged for 8 h showed 99 and 98% wear resistance at 5 and 15 N, respectively. In the present study, it was established that isothermal aging can be employed to enhance the wear resistance of Ti-6Al-4V alloy for use in biomedical applications.
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