Mechanical and fracture behavior of calcium phosphate cements

Apatite-based calcium phosphate cements are currently employed to a limited extent in the biomedical and dental fields. They present significant potential for a much broader range of applications, particularly as a bone mineral substitute for fracture fixation. Specifically, hydroxyapatite (HA) is known for its biocompatibility and non-immunogenicity, attributed to its similarity to the mineral phase of natural bone. The advantages of a cement-based HA include injectability, greater resorbability and osteoconductivity compared to sintered HA, and an isothermal cement-forming reaction that avoids necrosis during cement setting. Although apatite cements demonstrate good compressive strength, tensile properties are very weak compared to natural bone. Applications involving normal weight-bearing require better structural integrity than apatite cements currently provide. A more thorough understanding of fracture behavior can elucidate failure mechanisms and is essential for the design of targeted strengthening methods.; This study investigated a hydroxyapatite cement using a fracture mechanics approach, focusing on subcritical crack growth properties. Subcritical crack growth can lead to much lower load-bearing ability than critical strength values predict. Experiments show that HA cement is susceptible to crack growth under both cyclic fatigue-crack growth and stress corrosion cracking conditions, but only environmental, not mechanical, mechanisms contribute to crack extension. This appears to be the first evidence ever presented of stress corrosion crack growth behavior in calcium phosphate cements.; Stress corrosion cracking was examined for a range of environmental conditions. Variations in pH have surprisingly little effect. Behavior in water at elevated temperature (50°C) is altered compared to water at ambient temperature (22°C), but only for crack-growth velocities below 10-7 m/s. However, fracture resistance of dried HA cement in air increases significantly compared to in water. Based on observed trends, mechanisms of stress corrosion cracking are considered.; Strengthening methods using proteins as second phase additions to HA cement were also investigated. Critical flexure strength of these composites increases to a limited extent, primarily due to bridging of the fracture surfaces by organic phases. Despite the increase for critical values, stress corrosion crack growth of cement-albumin composites remains similar to unreinforced cement. This discrepancy between critical and subcritical behavior is discussed.