Investigation of Electric Arc Spray Coated 3D Printed PLA Scaffolds Implants for Orthopaedic Applications

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) has emerged as a globally adopted, newlinepowerful tool of manufacturing over traditional manufacturing techniques newlineowing its part customization characteristics, waste minimization, ability to newlinecreate complex shapes, design flexibility etc. Among, the distinct AM newlinetechniques, Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) has increased widespread newlinepopularity among researchers or Engineers working in the area of biomedical newline(orthopaedic implants), material science application and new product newlinedevelopment (NPD) owing of its simplicity, versatility of material usage and newlinecost effectiveness as compared to other additive manufacturing methods. newlineIn the current investigation, PLA samples were fabricated using low cost 3D newlineprinting techniques (FDM). Then, the fabricated samples were coated with newline316L SS material using low cost thermal spray process (electric arc spray). newlineFurther, the mechanical (tensile and flexural properties), morphological, newlinecorrosion (in-vitro corrosion test) and thermal behaviour (using differential newlinescanning calorimetry: DSC and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy: newlineFTIR) of coated samples were studied. newlineFor tensile and flexural analysis the total 18 samples of PLA material newline(9 for tensile and 9 for flexural test) were printed on FDM 3D printer based on newlineTaguchi s L-9 orthogonal array at different parameters. Further, these samples newlinewere coated with 316L stainless steel at different thickness (50µm, 100 µm newlineand 150 µm) using low cost electric spray method. Thereafter, the coated newlinesamples were tested for tensile and flexural strength using the universal testing newlinemachine (UTM). Finally, the optimal combinations of the parameters were newlineselected using Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of Signal-to-Noise ratio (S/N). newlineThe results showed that at optimum parameters (A1B2C2: raster angle 30º, newlinenumber of top and bottom layer 3, and coating thickness of 100µm) maximum newlinetensile strength (29.51MPa) and flexural strength (98MPa) was achieved. newline