Owing to the world population aging, biomedical materials, such as shape memory alloys (SMAs) have attracted much attention. The biocompatible Ti-Au-Ta SMAs, which also possess high X-ray contrast for the applications like guidewire utilized in surgery, were studied in this work. The alloys were successfully prepared by physical metallurgy techniques and the phase constituents, microstructures, chemical compositions, shape memory effect (SME), and superelasticity (SE) of the Ti-Au-Ta SMAs were also examined. The functionalities, such as SME, were revealed by the introduction of the third element Ta; in addition, obvious improvements of the alloy performances of the ternary Ti-Au-Ta alloys were confirmed while compared with that of the binary Ti-Au alloy. The Ti3Au intermetallic compound was both found crystallographically and metallographically in the Ti-4 at.% Au-30 at.% Ta alloy. The strength of the alloy was promoted by the precipitates of the Ti3Au intermetallic compound. The effects of the Ti3Au precipitates on the mechanical properties, SME, and SE were also investigated in this work. Slight shape recovery was found in the Ti-4 at.% Au-20 at.% Ta alloy during unloading of an externally applied stress.
Keywords: Ti–Au–Ta; biomedical materials; intermetallic compound; shape memory alloys; shape memory effect.