Selective Laser Melting of Novel Titanium-Tantalum Alloy as Orthopedic Biomaterial

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) technique that is capable of fabricating complex functional three-dimensional (3D) metal parts directly from the complete melting and fusion of powders. As a powder bed fusion technology, SLM has the potential to expand its material library by forming alloys that were previously difficult to achieve by using metal powder mixtures that can be customized according to the application requirements. Titanium-tantalum (TiTa) is a material that has potential uses in biomedical applications due to its high strength-to-modulus ratio. However, it is still not widely used because it is difficult to obtain. 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 (cpTi). Preliminary studies using cpTi lattice structures designed for biomedical applications were carried out. This research aims to develop TiTa as a material to be potentially used in biomedical field by investigating its processing window, resulting microstructure, and mechanical properties.