Modulating mechanical behaviour of 3D-printed cartilage-mimetic PCL scaffolds: influence of molecular weight and pore geometry

Three-dimensional (3D)-printed poly(epsilon)-caprolactone (PCL)-based scaffolds are increasingly being explored for cartilage tissue engineering (CTE) applications. However, ensuring that the mechanical properties of these PCL-based constructs are comparable to that of articular cartilage that they are meant to regenerate is an area that has been under-explored. This paper presents the effects of PCL's molecular weight (MW) and scaffold's pore geometric configurations; strand size (SZ), strand spacing (SS), and strand orientation (SO), on mechanical properties of 3D-printed PCL scaffolds. The results illustrate that MW has significant effect on compressive moduli and yield strength of 3D-printed PCL scaffolds. Specifically, PCL with MW of 45 K was a more feasible choice for fabrication of visco-elastic, flexible and load-bearing PCL scaffolds. Furthermore, pore geometric configurations; SZ, SS, and SO, all significantly affect on tensile moduli of scaffolds. However, only SZ and SS have statistically significant effects on compressive moduli and porosity of these scaffolds. That said, inverse linear relationship was observed between porosity and mechanical properties of 3D-printed PCL scaffolds in Pearson's correlation test. Altogether, this study illustrates that modulating MW of PCL and pore geometrical configurations of the scaffolds enabled design and fabrication of PCL scaffolds with mechanical and biomimetic properties that better mimic mechanical behaviour of human articular cartilage. Thus, the modulated PCL scaffold proposed in this study is a framework that offers great potentials for CTE applications.