A Taguchi Design Study for Optimisation of Plasma Sprayed Hydroxyapatite Coatings
Plasma sprayed hydroxyapatite coatings were deposited onto mild steel substrates. A Taguchi L9design of experiment protocol was used to optimise the coating process parameters. The effect of three factors: (i) power and secondary gas flow rate (X1), (ii) powder feed rate and carrier gas flow rate (X2), and (iii) stand-off distance (X3) on the coating responses was studied. The responses of the plasma sprayed hydroxyapatite coatings were evaluated in terms of porosity, deposition efficiency, microhardness, crystallinity, and surface roughness. A regression analysis established relationships between process parameters and responses. Higher power, lower powder feed rate and the middle stand-off distance of 11 cm lead to optimum attributes of low porosity, high deposition efficiency, high microhardness, high crystallinity, and high surface roughness.