from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Zinc alloys are recognised for their excellent biocompatibility and favourable corrosion resistance, making them suitable candidates for bioabsorbable implants. The major challenge concerning the utilisation of zinc as a biodegradable material is, however, its unsatisfactory mechanical strength. Commonly, strengthening through alloying and grain refinement results in a significant increase in strength but a decrease in ductility. Harmonic grain structure, which combines soft, ductile large grains with hard, ultrafine grains, has been found to be highly effective in overcoming the strength-ductility trade-off. This synergetic effect is primarily attributed to the high strain-hardening capability enabled by the heterogeneous grain distribution, which effectively delays the onset of plastic instability. In our research, the harmonic structure was prepared via powder metallurgy. Coarse-grained pure zinc was consolidated with ultrafine-grained Zn-Mg(-Ag) milled powder by spark plasma sintering (SPS) to produce compacts with various fractions of individual constituents. The resulting samples were analysed using advanced microscopy techniques and uniaxial deformation tests to reveal the effects of composition and the ratio between the two structural types on the mechanical properties of the investigated alloys.
Keywords: zinc, harmonic structure, powder metallurgy, microstructure, mechancial properties© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.