Investigation of three-body wear behavior and hardness of experimental titanium alloys for dental applications in oral environment

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 10⁵ wear cycles, 50 N mechanical force, 2.0 Hz wear frequency, 6 mm diameter Al₂O₃ antagonist ball, 5 °C/55 °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.