Metallurgical and interfacial co-relation of HA-ZnO-Fe₃O₄ composite for implant application with properties: experimental interaction study with ANOVA and ANCOVA model

ABSTRACT

An influence of processing parameters including the effect of reinforcement particulates for HA-ZnO-Fe₃O₄ composites fabricated via powder metallurgy is reported in relation to the metallurgical and mechanical properties. The results depict the effectiveness of Fe₃O₄ over HA composite along with metallurgical aspects and its interface formation. The obtained results confirm an improvement of around 100% in compressive strength and around 40% reductions in the hardness value for adding 10% Fe₃O₄ in HA composite. Experimental analysis confirms that adding 10% Fe₃O₄ has resulted in 6.9 GPa of hardness and 50.1 MPa of compressive strength. A mathematical model (probability regression fit) is analyzed for the evaluation of the interaction effect between mechanical properties and processing parameters with the help of an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). In summary, the model suggested that Fe₃O₄ is a dominating factor and responsible for the variation in mechanical properties in the composite.

KEYWORDS:

• Powder metallurgy
• hydroxyapatite
• Fe₃O₄
• microstructure
• ANCOVA

Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank the Biomaterial Laboratory, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, IIT Kanpur, for their kind support in performing experimental work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).