Fabrication of Mechanically Enhanced Hydroxyapatite Scaffold With the Assistance of Numerical Analysis

Abstract 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.