Fretting Fatigue Properties of Material used for Femoral Replacement

Abstract

Fretting fatigue is known as a cause of failure of implant materials. The aim of this study is to evaluate the fretting fatigue properties of T-i-6Al-4V alloy in air and in a simulated physiological environment. In a relatively high stress amplitude region, there is no difference of fatigue life between two environments. However, fatigue strength at 4.0×(10)^7 cycles in a simulated physiological environment is higher than that of in air. This is because the crack propagation rate in a simulated physiological environment is lower than that of in air due to corrosion products.