Fatigue - corrosion of endoprosthesis titanium alloys.

Commercial total hip prostheses often show certain metallurgical faults (porosities, coarse grains, growth dendrites, carbide networks). In order to investigate more accurately the role played by these different parameters in prostheses failure we performed a large number of systematic corrosion, fatigue and fatigue - corrosion tests on these materials and on commercial total hip prostheses. Ultimate strengthes seem to be reached for cast cobalt alloys, whereas titanium alloys, such as Ta 6 V, present very high fatigue limit under corrosion. Thus, rotative bending fatigue - corrosion tests in biological environment provide values about 50 DaN/mm2. This value, is nevertheless appreciably higher than those obtained with stellites and stainless steel. Titanium alloys, because of their mechanical performances, their weak Young's modulus (11000 DaN/mm2) and their relative lightness (4.5. g/cm3), which are associated with a good biocompatibility, seem very promising for permanent implants realisation.