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This article describes the development of a partially degradable metal bone pin, proposed to minimize the occurrence of bone refracture by avoiding the creation of holes in the bone after pin removal procedure. The pin was made by friction welding and composed of two parts: the degradable part that remains in the bone and the nondegradable part that will be removed as usual. Rods of stainless steel 316L (nondegradable) and pure iron (degradable) were friction welded at the optimum parameters: forging pressure = 33.2 kPa, friction time = 25 s, burn-off length = 15 mm, and heat input = 4.58 J/s. The optimum tensile strength and elongation was registered at 666 MPa and 13%, respectively. A spiral defect formation was identified as the cause for the ductile fracture of the weld joint. A 40-µm wide intermetallic zone was identified along the fusion line having a distinct composition of Cr, Ni, and Mo. The corrosion rate of the pin gradually decreased from the undeformed zone of pure iron to the undeformed zone of stainless steel 316L. All metallurgical zones of the pin showed no toxic effect toward normal human osteoblast cells, confirming the ppb level of released Cr and Ni detected in the cell media were tolerable.

This article reports a degradation study that was done on stent prototypes made of biodegradable Fe35Mn alloy in a simulated human coronary arterial condition. The stent degradation was observed for a short‐term period from 0.5 to 168 h, which simulates the early period of stenting procedure. Potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were used to quantify degradation rate and surface property of the stents. Results showed that signs of degradation were visible on both crimped and expanded stents after 1 h of test, mostly located on the stent's curvatures. The degradation rate of stent was higher compared to that of the original alloy, indicating the surface altering effect of stent fabrication processing to degradation. A single oxide layer was formed and detected as a porous structure with capacitive behavior. Expanded stents exhibited lower polarization resistance compared to the nonexpanded ones, indicating the cold work effect of expansion procedure to degradation. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 103B: 572–577, 2015.