Hydroxyapatite (HAp) has been found to be incompetent as it relates to its mechanical integrity, which somewhat restricts its use for load bearing clinical applications. In this study, synthesis and Taguchi grey relational analysis were conducted in the fabrication of mechanically enhanced HAp scaffold for load bearing application. The XRD and FTIR of raw cow bones (RB) and HAp sintered at 900, 1000, and 1100 o C show calcium phosphate contents of the bulk materials. It was also observed that increase in sintering temperature made prominent characteristic peaks of HAp phase to become narrower on the XRD patterns. Taguchi design analysis on the individual hardness and compressive strength revealed 1100 o C as the optimal sintering temperature, but a disparity in compaction load displaying 5 KN for high hardness and 15 K for high compressive strength. Conversely, Taguchi-grey relational analysis gave a common optimal processing parameter levels for high hardness and compressive strength to produce mechanically enhanced HAp scaffold, and are 1100 o C sintering temperature and 5 KN compaction load. Significantly, this study revealed that compaction load has a very high percentage of contribution of 90.15% compared to sintering temperature having a contribution of 7.79%. Confirmation analysis also proved that the experimental grey relational grade of 0.7824 is within 95% confidence interval.
Optimization of the manufacturing conditions with more than one performance characteristics have been a thing of concern, especially for Response Surface Method (RSM) optimization. Hence, this study addressed this challenge by reanalyzing a data presented in a previous study using grey relational analysis (GRA) and regression analysis. Central Composite Design (CCD) of RSM with high and low values of manufacturing conditions; voltage (50, 70) V, current (8, 16) A, pulse ON time (6, 10) μs, and pulse OFF time (7, 11) μs. The manufacturing conditions for optimal biomedical Ti-13Zr-13Nb alloy were obtained to be 50V voltage, 8A current, 6 μs pulse ON time, and 11 μs pulse OFF time. It was also revealed that the mathematical model was very efficient because the modeled GRG was in consonant with the experimental one. In addition, it was also established that current was the most significant manufacturing condition with a contribution of 47.27%. Voltage, factors interactions and residual error were insignificant on the GRG value of the titanium alloy. In conclusion, it can be deduced that the a small value of voltage within the considered settings could be used to manufacture better grade Ti-13Zr-13Nb alloy and also the small value of residual error showed the high manufacturability of the material.
Hydroxyapatite (HAp) has been found to be incompetent as it relates to its mechanical integrity, which somewhat restricts its use for load bearing clinical applications. In this study, synthesis and Taguchi grey relational analysis were conducted in the fabrication of mechanically enhanced HAp scaffold for load bearing application. The XRD and FTIR of raw cow bones (RB) and HAp sintered at 900, 1000, and 1100 oC show calcium phosphate contents of the bulk materials. It was also observed that increase in sintering temperature made prominent characteristic peaks of HAp phase to become narrower on the XRD patterns. Taguchi design analysis on the individual hardness and compressive strength revealed 1100 oC as the optimal sintering temperature, but a disparity in compaction load displaying 5 KN for high hardness and 15 K for high compressive strength. Conversely, Taguchi-grey relational analysis gave a common optimal processing parameter levels for high hardness and compressive strength to produce mechanically enhanced HAp scaffold, and are 1100 oC sintering temperature and 5 KN compaction load. Significantly, this study revealed that compaction load has a very high percentage of contribution of 90.15% compared to sintering temperature having a contribution of 7.79%. Confirmation analysis also proved that the experimental grey relational grade of 0.7824 is within 95% confidence interval.
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