INFLUENCE OF PROCESSING OF SHAPE MEMORY NiTi ALLOY ON ITS CORROSION RESISTANCE

NiTi alloys (nitinol) show the shape memory effect, superelastic behavior, high strength, good corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. These characteristics make them of interest for medical applications, such as dental medicine or manufacture of stents, i.e. tubular implants serving to restore blood vessels. Although nitinol is generally regarded as highly corrosion resistant material, it may corrode in human body under some circumstances with a negative effect on patients. Therefore, it is important to know factors affecting corrosion behavior of nitinol. In the present paper, corrosion behavior of nitinol subjected to various processing regimes is described.