Investigation of Cavitation Resistance of Biocompatible Zinc-Based Alloys for Biomedical Applications
摘要
Zinc and magnesium are known to be biocompatible metals. Through the combination of the two, respectively with copper, they found their application in stents and heart valves for personnel with cardiac problems. As the human body is a network of veins through which the blood circulates, the heart playing the role of a pump, similar to hydraulic networks, through which fluids circulate under pressure, hydrodynamic phenomena occur in the blood circulatory network in which the pressure changes its values. The sudden decrease in pressure, below that of vaporization, followed by a sudden increase leads to cavitation-type manifestations with all the effects known and presented in the literature (shocks, burglaries of veins, etc.). Starting from these constants, the paper presents the results of cavitation tests, carried out on two biocompatible alloys (ZnMg and ZnCuMg) created in the laboratories of the University of Natural Sciences and Technology Politehnica Bucharest. Due to the biocompatibility of the three, the objective of the work is a new and future one, that of identifying the best alloy with which to make heart valves, or stents, that can withstand the shocks produced by the implosions of cavitation bubbles in the blood. To this end, the paper contains the results of research on the behavior and resistance to erosion generated by vibrating cavitation, according to the reference standard ASTM G32-2016. The analysis and discussions are based on the characteristic curves and parameters of the structure's behavior and resistance to cavitation, as well as macro_ and on microscopic images of the surface structure destroyed by the cavitational microjets. The results, compared to pure zinc, show that these alloys are solutions for building biocompatible components that can serve cardiac people. The comparative analysis of those two alloys shows that the ZnCuMg alloy has the best resistance to the cyclic stresses of vibratory cavitation.