Manufacturing Cobalt Chromium Medical Devices
What is Cobalt-chromium?
Cobalt-chromium, CoCr, alloys are nonmagnetic Cobalt-based Chromium-Nickel alloys that have excellent corrosion and oxidation resistance. Yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, and elongation are higher when compared to stainless steel.
Applications include medical implant devices such as artificial heart valves, stents, and orthopedic/dental implants as well as non-medical applications such as springs, valves, and engine components for the aerospace industry. The driving force for selection of these alloys has been the remarkable combination of an acceptable biological response with very high strength.
CoCr is typically cold-worked and annealed – this provides tensile elongation percentages greater than 40% which makes them an ideal balloon expanded stent material. The high density of the material favors radiopacity and the high elastic modulus limits expansion recoil.
