Fatigue and Acoustic Emission Behavior of Plasma Sprayed HAp Top Coat and HAp/Ti Bond Coat with HAp Top Coat on Commercially Pure Titanium

In the conventional hydroxyapatite (HAp) coating, the surface of commercially pure titanium (Cp-Ti) is blasted with Al2O3 grid-blasting powders and then plasma-sprayed with HAp. To improve the adhesive strength of HAp coating, the grid-blasting with Al2O3 powders and subsequently wet-blasting by HAp/Ti mixed powders were applied on Cp-Ti substrate at ambient temperature. On the wet-blasted surface of Cp-Ti, two-layers of coating composed of HAp/Ti bond coat and HAp top coat were deposited by plasma spraying. Both types of HAp-coated specimen could survive up to 107 cycles without spallation of HAp coating at the stress amplitude of 120 MPa under four point bending fatigue test. In order to clarify mechanical failure behavior of the coatings and Ti substrate, acoustic emission (AE) signals during the entire fatigue process were observed. Relationship between AE behavior and cracking process of coated specimen was evaluated. HAp top coat with HAp/Ti bond coat strongly improved the adhesive and cohesive strength, where dense AE signals occurred at the early stage of fatigue test corresponded to plastic deformation of Ti substrate and micro-cracks in coated layers. AE signals occurred at the final stage corresponded to crack propagation in coated specimen and spallations of coated layers.