Mathematical approach to design 3D scaffolds for the 3D printable bone implant

This work demonstrates that an artificial scaffold structure can be designed to exhibit mechanical properties close to the ones of real bone tissue, thus highly reducing the stress-shielding phenomenon. In this study the scan of lumbar vertebra fragment was reproduced to create a numerical 3D model (this model was called the reference bone sam-ple). New nine 3D scaffold samples were designed and their numerical models were cre-ated. Using the finite element analysis, a static compression test was performed to assess the effective Young modulus of each tested sample. Also, two important metrics of each sample were assessed: relative density and surface area. Each new designed 3D scaffold sample was analyzed by considering two types of material properties: metal alloy properties (Ti-6Al-4V) and ABS polymer properties. Numerical analysis results of this study confirm that 3D scaffold used to design a periodic structure, either based on interconnected beams (A, B, C, D, E and F units) or made by removing regular shapes from base solid cubes (G, H, I units), can be refined to obtain mechanical properties similar to the ones of trabec-ular bone tissue. Experimental validation was performed on seven scaffolds (A, B, C, D, E, F and H units) printed from ABS material without any support materials by using Fused Deposition Modeling (FMD) technology. Results of experimental Young modulus of each printed scaffold are also presented and discussed. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Nalecz Institute of Biocyber-netics and Biomedical Engineering of the Polish Academy of Sciences. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study demonstrates the design of an artificial scaffold structure to reduce stress-shielding phenomenon. Experimental validation shows that 3D scaffold samples with different material properties can achieve mechanical properties similar to trabecular bone tissue.