Analysis of Mechanical Properties and Permeability of Trabecular-Like Porous Scaffold by Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Human bone cells live in a complex environment, and the biomimetic design of porous structures attached to implants is in high demand. Porous structures based on Voronoi tessellation with biomimetic potential are gradually used in bone repair scaffolds. In this study, the mechanical properties and permeability of trabecular-like porous scaffolds with different porosity levels and average apertures were analyzed. The mechanical properties of bone-implant scaffolds were evaluated using finite element analysis and a mechanical compression experiment, and the permeability was studied by computational fluid dynamics. Finally, the attachment of cells was observed by confocal fluorescence microscope. The results show that the performance of porous structures can be controlled by the initial design of the microstructure and tissue morphology. A good structural design can accurately match the performance of the natural bone. The study of mechanical properties and permeability of the porous structure can help address several problems, including stress shielding and bone ingrowth in existing biomimetic bone structures, and will also promotes cell adhesion, migration, and eventual new bone attachment.

Effects of Calcium Carbonate Microcapsules and Nanohydroxyapatite on Properties of Thermosensitive Chitosan/Collagen Hydrogels

“…Thus, it might hinder mesenchymal stem cell ingrowth and blood vessel infiltration into the inner structure of the three-dimensional matrix of hydrogels [ 54 , 55 , 56 ]. Evidently, the permeability of the 2% and 5% nHA with 1% CaCO 3 was markedly higher than that of the groups with 2% and 5% CaCO 3 , which supports the observation from the SEM analysis that an increase in CaCO 3 content decreased the inter-pore connectivity, which can adversely affect the permeability of the hydrogel [ 57 ]. Permeability of the scaffolds is an important property that supports inflow and outflow of fluid, nutrients, oxygen, and metabolic waste in the 3D structure, including infiltration of MSCs into the inner structure of the scaffolds [ 58 ].…”

Li-Doped Bioactive Ceramics: Promising Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

“…The mechanical properties of bone are of fundamental importance to its biological role [ 120 , 121 ] and a key property of tissue scaffolds for bone tissue engineering [ 122 , 123 ]. Li boosts β-catenin signaling, which stimulates bone growth in reply to mechanical load.…”

A morphological, topological and mechanical investigation of gyroid, spinodoid and dual-lattice algorithms as structural models of trabecular bone

“…Recently, studies have included greater complexity when using computational approaches to generate biomimetic trabecular bone structures in an effect to better represent the morphological and topological features of the trabecular bone microarchitecture. Early work by Gibson and coworkers has used Voronoi tessellation in two- (Ruiz et al, 2011(Ruiz et al, , 2010Schaffner et al, 2000;Silva and Gibson, 1997) and three-dimensions (Chao et al, 2021;Kirby et al, 2020) to create irregular cellular solid representations for low-density trabecular bone (Makiyama et al, 2002;Vajjala et al, 2000).…”