Mechanistic Studies Of Combustion And Structure Formation During Combustion Synthesis Of Advanced Materials: Phase Separation Mechanism For Bio-Alloys

Among all implant materials, Co-Cr-Mo alloys demonstrate perhaps the most useful balance of resistance to corrosion, fatigue and wear, along with strength and biocompatibility [1]. Currently, these widely used alloys are produced by conventional furnace technology. Owing to high melting points of the main alloy elements (e.g. Tm.p.(Co) ~1768 K), high-temperature furnaces and long process times (several hours) are required. Therefore, attempts to develop more efficient and flexible methods for production of such alloys with superior properties are of great interest. The synthesis of materials using combustion phenomena is an advanced approach in powder metallurgy [2]. The process is characterized by unique conditions involving extremely fast heating rates (up to 10(exp 6 K/s), high temperatures (up to 3500 K), and short reaction times (on the order of seconds). As a result, combustion synthesis (CS) offers several attractive advantages over conventional metallurgical processing and alloy development technologies. The foremost is that solely the heat of chemical reaction (instead of an external source) supplies the energy for the synthesis. Also, simple equipment, rather than energy-intensive high-temperature furnaces, is sufficient. This work was devoted to experiments on CS of Co-based alloys by utilizing thermite (metal oxide-reducing metal) reactions, where phase separation subsequently produces materials with tailored compositions and properties. Owing to high reaction exothermicity, the CS process results in a significant increase of temperature (up to 3000 C), which is higher than melting points of all products. Since the products differ in density, phase separation may be a gravitydriven process: the heavy (metallic phase) settles while the light (slag) phase floats. The goal was to determine if buoyancy is indeed the major mechanism that controls phase segregation.