Abstract
Degradation mechanisms of biomedical alloys involve two different phenomena, corrosion and wear, which simultaneously act and may cause the failure of implants and prosthesis. In this work, tribocorrosion of Ti6Al4V biomedical alloy in artificial saliva is studied at open circuit potential (OCP) by a new electrochemical technique that allows measuring the galvanic potential and current between the wear track (anode) and the passive material (cathode) through zero-resistance ammetry. The experimental set-up was conceived for physically separating the depassivated area from the passive material, thus allowing to quantify the mechanically activated corrosion at OCP. Two different counterparts, SiC and Al2O3, were used against the Ti6Al4V alloy in order to analyse the influence of the initial contact pressure on the tribocorrosion mechanisms. A galvanic model based on the cathodic
reaction kinetics can describe the current and the potential evolution with time during sliding. It has been observed that at the highest initial contact pressures, wear follows the Archard law, while at lower contact pressures, third body appeared and wear can not be described by the Archard law. Quantification of the evolution of the depassivated wear track with time was obtained and the deviation from the Archard predictions was analysed.
