Abstract

Selective Laser Melting Of Novel Titanium-Tantalum Alloy as Orthopeadic Biomaterial

Sing Swee Leong, Project Officer, Singapore Centre for 3D Printing

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) technique that is capable of fabricating complex functional three-dimensional (3D) metal parts of high relative density from the complete melting and fusion of powders. As a powder bed fusion technology, SLM has the potential in expanding the materials library by formation of alloys that were previously difficult to achieve from metal powder mixtures that can be customised according to the application requirements. Titanium-tantalum (TiTa) is a potential material to use in biomedical applications due to its high strength to modulus ratio. However, it is still not widely used due to the difficulties in obtaining this alloy. SLM is chosen as the method to form this alloy due to its versatility in processing metallic materials and good results obtained from commercially pure titanium and Ti6Al4V. The TiTa formation using SLM is studied using microstructure, mechanical and biocompatibility characterisations. This research aims to develop TiTa as a potential material for biomedical applications.