Development and characterization of MAO bioactive ceramic coating grown on micro-patterned Ti6Al4V alloy surface

•MAO combined with FPSP process is superior to the simple MAO.•The rougher dimple surface interspersed by fine pore structure exhibited better bioactivity.•The fatigue was improved due to the introduced residual compressive stress by FPSP.•The wear resistance was improved by the alleviated three body wear.

In this paper, we describe a strategy for growing bioactive ceramic coatings on a micro-patterned Ti6Al4V alloy substrate using microarc oxidation (MAO) combined with fine particle shot-peening (FPSP) process, for the purpose to obtain the bio-activated titanium alloy with improved wear resistance and fatigue properties. The microstructure and phase composition of FPSP-MAO coating and simple MAO coating were examined using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The bioactivity, tribology and fatigue properties of FPSP-MAO and simple MAO coated samples were evaluated comparatively. The results indicate that the FPSP-MAO5 coating with a rougher dimple surface interspersed by fine pore structure has better inducing capacity of biomimetic apatite compared with simple MAO5 coating. FPSP-MAO5 and FPSP-MAO10 coated samples exhibit an improved fatigue life, increasing by 12.6% and 8.4% in comparison to that of the simple MAO5 and MAO10 coated ones, which is possibly attributed to residual compressive stress induced in the substrate near the coating/substrate interface. The wear resistance of FPSP-MAO5 and MAO10 coatings was significantly improved caused by the alleviated three body wear due to the debris container effect of dimples structure.