a b s t r a c tA good biocompatibility, excellent mechanical properties and high corrosion resistance characterize CoCrMo alloys. Therefore they are widely used for artificial joints in biomedical implants. However, the degradation of the implants during service life leads to the release into the body of toxic ions and wear particles. This continuous degradation is of concern for long-term stability of the implants. Published literature has highlighted the relevance of lubrication as well as metallurgical and contact mechanical factors on the degradation of CoCrMo implant alloys. Recent experimental investigations have proposed tribocorrosion, i.e., the interplay of mechanical wear and corrosion by the body fluids, as one of the crucial degradation mechanism of implants. Tribocorrosion is sub-discipline of tribology and corrosion that recently made significant progresses in mechanistic understanding and modelling. The present work aims at evaluating published results on the degradation of CoCrMo alloys using existing tribocorrosion concepts. Results show that wear accelerated corrosion due to mechanical removal of the passive film during sliding is a major contribution to the overall degradation. Further, a transition from low (10 À 6 N/mm 3 m) to high (10 À 4 N/mm 3 m) wear coefficients was found at a threshold electrode potential close to 0.2 V SHE These findings clearly show that electrochemical phenomena play a key role on the tribological behaviour of biomedical CoCrMo alloy implants.

The corrosion behavior of CoCrMo alloy in simulated body fluids has been analyzed by electrochemical techniques and surface analysis. Interaction of albumin and phosphates present in the body fluids on the passive film of the alloy was also investigated. Electrochemical techniques such as potentiodynamic and potentiostatic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were employed. Further, ex situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Auger electron spectroscopy analysis of the passive films were carried out. The study reveals that phosphates and proteins present in simulated body fluid play a significant role in the electrochemical properties of the metal/oxide/electrolyte interface. Surface analysis showed that both species competitively adsorb on the alloy surface. For a given passive potential, the impedance behavior of passive CoCrMo was found to depend on the way passive conditions were established. A simple model has been developed assuming a multilayer structure of the surface including an outer layer where albumin and phosphate ions adsorb, the passive film ͑inner layer͒, and the metal. This model is consistent with the obtained electrochemical and surface analysis results.

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A deep understanding of degradation mechanisms of metals is crucial for developing new materials with high performance. Within the different families of stainless steels, martensitic stainless steels are widely used in a great variety of industrial applications where mechanical properties, such as strength, wear resistance and fatigue behavior, need to be high. In many of those applications, such as bearings or gears, martensitic stainless steels may be subject to tribological conditions leading to wear. Furthermore, when a contact operates in a corrosive environment its deterioration can be significantly affected by surface chemical phenomena, leading to a tribocorrosion degradation mechanism. Indeed, martensitic stainless steels degrade through a great variety of wear and corrosion mechanisms. This paper aims to review the published data from 2005 to present related to wear, corrosion and tribocorrosion of martensitic stainless steels. Individual studies of tribological and corrosion behavior of martensitic stainless steels have been widely published since 2005. From the wear point of view, ploughing or abrasive wear in dry contacts involving martensitic stainless steel has been reported, while pitting corrosion is the most common mechanism for those steels. However, only nine papers were found since 2005 related to tribocorrosion of martensitic stainless steels, although most authors concluded that this joint action is the most important material degradation in martensitic stainless steels.

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