experimental investigation of fgm dental implant properties made from ti/ha composite

Although titanium/hydroxyapatite composite is an attractive material for dental implants, it would be more useful if it could be produced as a functionally graded material (fgm). in this paper, microstructure and microhardness of a five-layer titanium/hydroxyapatite functionally graded material has been investigated. first, titanium and hydroxyapatite (ha) powders were mixed with the ti to ha volume ratios of 100:0, 90:10, 80:20, 70:30 and 60:40. next, the obtained powders were poured into a graphite mold functionally and then sintered using spark plasma sintering (sps) method. microhardness and microstruc-ture of the samples was examined using vickers microhardness test and optical microsco-py. the results show that ha particles have an acceptable distribution in the matrix. also, average matrix grain size increased in ti/ha composites compared to the pure ti layer. moreover, the layers with 30 and 40 vol% ha have the highest and the lowest microhard-ness, respectively.