Influence of grit blasting treatment using steel slag balls on the subsurface microhardness, surface characteristics and chemical composition of medical grade 316L stainless steel

Comparison of Surface Characteristics of Medical-grade 316L Stainless Steel Processed by Sand-blasting, Slag Ball-blasting and Shot-blasting Treatments

“…As can be seen in this figure, all the blasting treatments were able to increase the hardness of the surface and subsurface layers of the specimen. This finding confirmed the results obtained in previous works with other mechanical surface treatments [10][11][12][13]15]. Interestingly, the shot-blasting treatment conducted in this research was able to produce the specimen with the hardest surface and subsurface layers.…”

“…As also noted previously, blasting particles with angular shapes cause surface material loss or erosion by a cutting mechanism when impacting the blasted surface [16,17]. In agreement with these previous reports, the irregular surface morphology and sharp edges of both the silica particles and the slag balls indented, gouged and even removed some of the surface material [11], which ultimately led to the formation of a rough surface layer. The microhardness distributions across the specimens' sectional area are demonstrated in Figure 4.…”

“…Similarly, the use spherical metallic shot for the surface treatment of metallic biomaterials has also been reported [12,15]. Meanwhile, the use of waste particulate materials such as slag balls in blasting treatments has only recently been reported [11]. the metallic shot was spherical and had a relatively smoother surface than both the silica particles and the slag balls, as can be seen in Figures 1(e) and (f).…”

“…Apart from being useful for improving the performance of metallic implants, sand-blasting and shot-blasting have also received attention from researchers because of their application in the post-processing of low-cost and biocompatible 316L stainless steel. In recent studies, the surface morphology and roughness of 316L stainless steel series were varied with the duration of the blasting treatment [10][11][12]. As was shown in previous studies, a rough metallic surface can be produced by blasting of angular, irregularly shaped particles [10,13,14] instead of smooth and spherical shot [12].…”

“…Prior to the blasting treatments, the specimens were first ground and polished using a set of abrasive sandpapers to obtain specimens with a uniform surface roughness. The blasting treatments were then carried out with a duration from 0 to 20 min in a custom-built grit blasting unit, as specified in [11]. In this study, the specimens were subjected to three blasting treatments: (1) with silica particles, (2) with slag balls and (3) with metallic shot as the blasting media.…”