Abstract:

The article presents a review of scientific publications dedicated to the modern directions of research of titanium-based alloys, which are widely used as materials for the manufacture of artificial implants. Complex requirements for such materials, including mechanical properties, bioinertness and biocompatibility, are considered. Special attention is given to the main groups of modern Ti-alloys, to the analysis of their chemical composition and alloying systems (Ti - Al - Nb, Ti - Al - Fe, Ti - Nb - Hf, Ti - Nb - Ta - Zr, Ti - Mo - Zr - Fe, Ti - Nb - Zr - Sn, etc.), features of structure (,  + , ), mechanical properties and biocompatibility. The problem of "stress shielding", which arises in the treatment of bone fractures due to the use of titanium alloy implants with high modulus of elasticity, is described. It is shown that the modern directions in the development of new titanium alloys with improved proper-ties are the creation of low-modulus alloys with  - structure, metastable alloys with self-tunable Young´s modulus, alloys with high resistance to deposition of calcium phosphate for removable implants (Ti-Zr-based), nickel-free titanium alloys with elasticity and shape memory effect. It has been found that special attention is paid to enhancing the biocompatibility of titanium alloys by removing such toxic ele-ments as nickel, vanadium, aluminium, and using safe chemical elements (zirconi-um, niobium, tantalum, iron, tin, zinc, hafnium, etc.). The data on modern techno-logical approaches to enhancing the functional properties of titanium alloys using modifying alloying, intensive plastic deformation with high degrees of compression, heat treatment, combination of thermal and mechanical treatments, formation of directional crystalline texture are presented.

Keywords: implants, titanium alloys, biocompatibility, strength, elastic modulus