Nano-Hydroxyapatite Coatings on Titanium Substrates. Finite Element Analysis of Process and Experimental Plasma Thermal Sprayed Coatings

The aim of this study was to create a nano-structured coating using Plasma Thermal Spraying (PTS). This process consists in introducing pre-agglomerated nanosized particles in a high-temperature and high-velocity gas jet and projected them onto the substrate to form, layer by layer, a nanostructured coating. In order to retain nanometer grain sizes in the deposited coating through specific PTS technologies, a thermal field and velocity distribution in the plasma jet are analytically calculated. A finite element analysis is employed to calculate the thermal field evolution inside the agglomerated particles and the thermal induced internal stress distribution is determined. The parameters determined by the theoretical analysis are used for experimental coatings. The average crystallite size of nano-hydroxyapatite powder was 90nm. After deposit via Plasma Thermal Spraying (PTS) process and followed by a 2 hours heat treatment to reduce amorphous fraction, the experimental deposited coating shows that it retains the nanometer crystallite sizes. The substructure of nanocrystals was evaluated at about 120nm in size. Such a nanocoating may play the role of nucleation site to bone, allowing a faster stabilization of the implant.