Investigating the relevance of TiNbTaZr high entropy alloy for orthopaedic applications

The drawbacks of commonly used metallic biomaterials like the release of toxic ions for the CoCrMo alloy and poor wear resistance for Ti-based alloys make it necessary to find a better metallic material as a new candidate for orthopaedic applications. In this work, different characterisation techniques were employed to investigate the relevance of a recently suggested TiNbTaZr HEA for orthopaedic applications. TiNbTaZr exhibited excellent mechanical properties and outstanding electrochemical behaviour. However, no significant enhancement in tribocorrosion wear behaviour is observed of TiZrNbTa over Ti6Al4V alloy, but the two materials exhibit different in-situ repassivation behaviour during tribocorrosion testing. A new approach of using the electrochemical noise EN technique in tribocorrosion investigation and data analysis is suggested.