Abstract
Obtaining excellent wear resistance is critical for titanium alloys used as orthopedic implants. In this study, the β-type Ti-35Nb-5Cu- x Mo alloys (Ti355 x , x = 0, 1, 2, and 4 wt%) were fabricated by the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) method. In the meantime, the influence mechanism of Mo content on the microstructure and tribological properties was systematically investigated. The results show that all the LPBF-produced Ti355 x alloys exhibit a bimodal columnar-equiaxed grain structure, with Mo refining columnar grains and suppressing the α″ phase formation. Moreover, increasing the Mo content reduced the relative density, while enhancing the microhardness. However, tribological responses exhibited an initial decrease followed by an increase with increasing Mo content. When the Mo content reached 2 wt% (in Ti3552 alloy), the friction coefficient and the wear rate decreased to ∼0.76 and ∼3.8 × 10−4 mm3 N−1 m−1 , respectively, whereas both parameters (∼0.80 and ∼4.3 × 10−4 mm3 N−1 m−1) significantly increased when the Mo content rose to 4 wt%. This phenomenon stems from the exceptional hardness homogeneity of the Ti3552 alloy (with the Weibull shape parameter of ∼18.2), which facilitated continuous TiO2 film formation and suppressed the stress-concentration-induced fracture, enhancing the wear resistance.
Keywords
laser powder bed fusion, microstructure, Ti-Nb-based alloys, tribological properties
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
Volume
39
Publication Title
Metals Advances
Publisher
Elsevier
School
Centre for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing / School of Engineering
Funding Information
This work was financially supported by the Major Research Plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 92166112), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52373236 and 52401084), the Guangxi Key Laboratory of Information Materials (Grant No. 221012-K), and the Guangdong Province International Science and Technology Cooperation Project (No. 2023A0505050103).
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
First Page
13
Last Page
25
Recommended Citation
Qin, L., Zhou, S., Jin, J., Yang, H., Li, K., Deng, C., Yuan, Y., Hosseini, S. R. E., & Zhang, L. (2026). Effect of molybdenum content on the microstructure and tribological properties of Ti-Nb-Cu alloys produced by LPBF additive manufacturing. Metals Advances, 39, 13–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.metadv.2025.12.002