UC Irvine

It is key to consider a material's mechanical properties when determining its use for any given application, including biomaterial implantations. One such characteristic includes the fatigue life, which is determined by repeatedly cycling specified amounts of load on any given material [2]. The fatigue life is then measured according to how many cycles of load the material can undergo before fracture [2]. When a material is introduced to the human body it is usually expected that the life of the material will not match that of the patient. It is crucial to understand the fatigue life of the material before implantation to pre-diagnose how often and when the implant will need to be replaced.

The purpose of this project is to help determine and compare the fatigue behaviors of a commonly used biocompatible coating on Titanium 6-4 metal alloy. The comparison will help identify how the material properties vary with the addition of calcium phosphate when compared to the bare alloy itself.

Multiple, small rectangular samples were cut by electrical discharge machining (EDM) of which half were covered with calcium phosphate coating. Fatigue crack initiations and propagation would then be analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to help determine the nature of the damage processes. It was found that the fatigue life of the coated samples varied at different stresses but was greater than the bare samples, and particularly high in the 900 MPa - 1000 MPa stress range.