Fabrication and biomechanical evaluation of polyurethane material for synthetic bone

Abstract

Synthetic bone has become an important tool for education in the orthopaedics field and biomechanical research. The use of the conventional tool such as cadaver has become a challenge to the researcher and orthopaedic surgeon, as it was highly cost, ethical issues and storage. In addition, the available synthetic bones in the market were expensive and only in European size. This research was focusing on developing the synthetic bone using polyurethane material, evaluate the mechanical strength of the developed synthetic bone and characterize the morphological structure of the developed synthetic bone. The development of the synthetic bone was using Polyurethane (PU) as its material. Two type composition of PU was used for this research. The material mixed and poured into the mould that has been designed according to American Society Testing and Material (ASTM) standard which was ASTM-F1839. Then, composition 1 and composition 2 undergo mechanical testing and morphology analysis by using Instron and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) respectively. The average Young's Modulus of composition 1 and composition 2 were 208.6963 MPa and 384.6304 MPa respectively. In short, the developed synthetic bone has greater Young's modulus compared to the synthetic bone that available in the market and which are 132.3254 MPa (Sawbone) and 68.1483 MPa (Synbone). The morphological analysis has shown the fabricated synthetic bone has compact structure compare to the one in the market that mimic the cancellous bone. In conclusion, composition 2 of PU have the highest Young's modulus but from the morphological analysis it does not mimic the morphology of cancellous bone.