THE EFFECT OF SPARK PLASMA SINTERING ON THE POROSITY AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF Ti-15Mo ALLOY

Metastable beta-titanium alloys are receiving much interest for various applications such as aircraft industry and medicine thanks to their excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility. The common way of preparing the titanium alloys is hindered by its production costs. Powder metallurgy (PM) approach is a promising route for cost-effective fabrication of titanium alloys due to possibility of near net shaping. In this study, binary biomedical Ti-15Mo alloy was prepared by PM. Gas atomized powder was sintered by spark plasma sintering (SPS) above the beta-transus temperature of the studied alloy. The compaction of the powders was accomplished by short-time sintering. The effect of the time of sintering on the porosity and the microhardness in centre part as well as in periphery part of the sample was investigated. The samples revealed significant inhomogeneity - the porosity increases with the distance from the centre of the specimen. With increasing sintering times the porosity decreases and simultaneously the microhardness increases.