Deposition of Ti/TiC Composite Coatings on Implant Structures Using Laser Engineered Net Shaping

A new method of depositing hard and wear resistant composite coatings on metal-onmetal bearing surfaces of titanium implant structures is proposed and demonstrated. The method consists of depositing a Ti/TiC composite coating (~ 2.5 mm thick) on titanium implant bearing surfaces using Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS®). Defect-free composite coatings were successfully produced at various amounts of the reinforcing TiC phase with excellent interfacial characteristics using a mixture of commercially pure Ti and TiC powders. The coatings consisted of a mixture of coarser unmelted/partially melted (UMC) TiC particles and finer, discreet resolidified (RSC) TiC particles uniformly distributed in the titanium matrix. The amounts of UMC and RSC were found to increase with increasing TiC content of the original powder mixture. The coatings exhibited a high level of hardness, which increased with increasing TiC content of the original powder mixture. Fractographic studies indicated that the coatings, even at 60 vol.% TiC, do not fail in a brittle manner. Various aspects of LENS® deposition of Ti/TiC composite coatings are addressed and a preliminary understanding of structure-property-fracture correlations is presented. The current work shows that the proposed approach to deposit composite coatings using laser-based metal deposition processes is highly-effective, which can be readily utilized on a commercial basis for manufacture of high-performance implants.