ABSTRACT
Titanium and its alloys play a major role in biomedical applications due to their low modulus, low density, high strength-to-weight ratio, good corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility. However, the limitations in terms of bioactivity and inferior tribological properties of Ti based materials are found to be a major concern in load bearing bioimplant applications, particularly in hip and knee joints. Surface mechanical attrition treatment (SMAT) is a renowned surface severe plastic deformation (S2PD) technique, capable of generating a functionally gradient structure with nanocrystalline (NC) surface. SMAT induces compressive residual stress and defects/dislocations, and refines the grain size at the surface, which significantly enhances the fatigue resistance, hardness, and tribological performances of materials. The generating of a suitable surface topography by SMAT could provide a considerable improvement in proliferation, osteoblast adhesion, mineralization, and maturation. The present chapter focuses the impact of SMAT in tuning the surface properties of Ti based materials, such as microstructural, mechanical, tribological performance, corrosion behavior, and cell adhesion.
