Investigation of three-body wear behavior and hardness of experimental titanium alloys for dental applications in oral environmentUntersuchungen des Dreikorperverschleißverhaltens und der Harte von experimentellen Titanlegierungen fur dentale Anwendungen in oraler Umgebung

The aim of this study was to investigate the three-body wear resistance and hardness of commercially pure titanium and titanium alloys containing zirconium and tantalum (cp-Ti, Ti-5Zr and Ti-5Ta). Each titanium test group, were subjected to wear tests under 10(5) wear cycles, 50 N mechanical force, 2.0 Hz wear frequency, 6 mm diameter Al2O3 antagonist ball, 5 degrees C/55 degrees C thermal change conditions immersed in poppy seed slurry as third-body medium. The mean wear volume loss and depth of all test specimens after the three-body wear tests was determined with use non-contact 3D profilometer and also Vicker's hardness was measured. Wear area of microstructures were evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The hardness of Ti-5Zr material was significantly greater than the other alloy material and cp-Ti. However, for the test materials in this study considered, correlations between the three-body wear resistance and hardness were found to be insignificant. It was concluded, the three-body wear resistance of the alloy formed with the adding of zirconium and tantalum to the pure titanium is increased after wear tests.