Laboratory of Metallology of Non-ferrous and Light metals named after Academician A.A. Bochvar

Currently, in medicine, steel and titanium, which are non-degradable in the environment of the human body, are mainly used as materials for creating orthopedic implants and products for cardiovascular surgery. These materials have proven themselves well in this direction, but they have one significant drawback – the need for repeated surgery to remove a worn-out structure. Otherwise, the products in the patient's body can cause negative reactions of the body due to the gradual release of metal ions. In addition, the mechanical properties of steel and titanium implants significantly exceed the properties of cortical bone, which can cause uneven bone remodeling. Therefore, currently, doctors and materials scientists have taken care of creating a new generation of implants that would have the ability to bioresorption, that is, decompose in the patient's body during the healing process of injury. Promising candidates for the creation of such products are alloys based on Mg, Zn and Fe-Mn systems. The advantage of products made from these materials is that after completion of therapy (after fusion of the fracture, release of the drug, resorption of cholesterol deposits), there is no need to remove the product from the patient's body, since it gradually dissolves and is excreted from the body naturally. The use of bioresorbable implants reduces the risk of peri-implantation osteoporosis due to the so-called stress screening effect, reduces the risk of complications in the patient, reduces the likelihood of allergic reactions, and due to gradual degradation also allows for the gradual flow of medicines (for example, an antibiotic or cytostatic) into the implantation area. In addition, such implants are of particular interest in the treatment of bone fractures in children and adolescents, since they have constant bone growth, which makes it difficult to use non-resorbable implants. The Laboratory of Metallology of Non-ferrous and Light Metals conducts research on all three promising metals.

Magnesium alloys, characterized by an advantageous combination of density and mechanical properties, are widely used in aviation, rocket science, astronautics and the automotive industry, which require the improvement of existing and the creation of new lightweight structural materials with high strength and heat resistance. Along with the use of existing magnesium alloys, the possibilities of increasing their strength properties are far from exhausted, and therefore it was advisable to consider ways to improve magnesium alloys by applying various technologies and additional alloying to it.

The search for a balance between strength and electrical conductivity is one of the urgent tasks in the development of low-alloy copper alloys for electrical engineering [1-3]. For example, contact welding electrodes during operation must not only conduct an electric current to the material, but also compress the elements to be welded and remove the heat released during welding. Therefore, the materials from which such electrodes are made must have good thermal and electrical conductivity, high strength, wear resistance and crack resistance. Dispersion-hardening copper alloys such as chrome and chromium-zirconium bronzes largely meet the above requirements for electrode materials and are currently being successfully used in industry. However, the need to increase the resistance of electrodes and increase their durability requires continuous improvement of electrode materials, both through the development of new compositions and due to optimization of thermal and thermomechanical processing modes.