Mechanical and Microstructural Characterization of Porous NiTi Shape Memory Alloys

This article presents the mechanical behavior of porous NiTi in the context of biomedical applications related to bone prostheses. To produce the porous metallic material, a novel technique consisting of mixing prealloyed NiTi powder with a polymer powder and a foaming agent has been used. This method permits control of the size of pores and the porosity level. For the present study, pores similar to those found in bones (400 to 500 mu m) were obtained with a total porosity of the specimens varying from 50 to 70 pct. The compression mechanical testing carried out on small cylindrical specimens revealed shape memory deformation recovery up to 6.4 pct, while the superelastic behavior resulted in a reversible deformation up to 7.7 pct. By varying the amount of porosity, it was possible to obtain Young's moduli in the range of 2.6 to 4.6 GPa, which is similar to the modulus of cancellous (spongy) human bone.