Microstructures and Mechanical Study of Mg Alloy Foam Based on Mg-Zn-Ca-CaCO3 System

Magnesium alloy, a material that has potential to use some applications such asaerospace components, computer parts, and mobile phones. Magnesium alloy can also be apopular candidate as an orthopedic implant material for biodegradability, non-toxicity, andmechanical and physical properties that are excellent. Magnesium, one of the main macroelements required for the proper functioning of the human organism, is used to test thematerials for biodegradable implants. The main objective of this study was to find out themicrostructure, and mechanical characteristics of the Mg-Ca-Zn-CaCO3 alloy as porousimplant materials are biodegradable. The presence of CaCO3 on the alloy functions as afoaming agent expected to produce gas bubbles during manufacturing process taken place thatwill form pores in the alloy. Mg-Ca-Zn-CaCO3 alloy was made by powder metallurgy methodwith three variations of composition (96Mg-Ca-3Zn-CaCO3, 91Mg-Ca-3Zn-5CaCO3, and86Mg-Ca-3Zn-10CaCO3 wt persen). Milling process was by using a shaker mill for 2 hours toproduce a powder size distribution which was more homogeneous. The mixed powder wasuniaxially pressed at a pressure of 100 MPa for 2 minutes and 200 MPa for 3 minutes intogreen compacts with dimensions of 10 mm in diameter and 10 mm in length. The sinteringprocess was carried out at 650°C with a variation of holding time of 10 and 15 hours, and thenthe specimens were cooled down at room temperature. Microstructural analysis was performedby using X-Ray diffraction technique and Scanning electron microscopy equipped with anenergy disperse spectrometry (EDS). The mechanical characteristics were analyzed by usingUniversal Testing Machine. The density and porosity of specimen were further measured byusing Archimedes method. The results show that the optimum microstructure and mechanicalcharacteristics are the holding time of 10 hours. The value of compression was 208.398N/mm2, the density was 1.63 g/cc and a porosity was 18 persen on the composition of 86Mg-Ca-3Zn-10CaCO3 wt persen. The 4th International Conference on Advanced Materials Science and Technology IOP Publishing IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 202 (2017) 012028