Simulation analysis of different bone scaffold porous structures for fused deposition modelling fabrication process

Abstract

Porous structure of bone scaffold plays an important role in tissue engineering applications. The nature of scaffold structure such as porosity, porous structure, pore size and pore interconnectivity can strongly affect the mechanical strength and transportation of nutrients throughout the scaffold in human body. Due to the complexity of internal scaffold structure, Additive Manufacturing (AM) system of Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is a promising technology to fabricate scaffold with desired design and properties. In this study, mechanical properties of different Polylactic acid (PLA) porous scaffold porous scaffold designs such as circle and square with pore sizes range 1 mm to 2 mm at targeted porosity of up to 80% were explored. Combination of different shape designs and pore sizes were simulated using ABAQUS. The compressive modulus outcomes of the PLA porous structure for circle and square were in the range of 1.0 to 1.2GPa respectively. Circle porous structure showed better performance, while square porous structure contains sharp edges which produce high concentration stress and resulting to lower elastic modulus. The stiffness increases in combination of different pore sizes which leads to higher Young's Modulus. It should be noted that, the benefits of this simulation analysis may perform preliminary prediction of bone scaffold Young's Modulus before further experimental processes and biological cell proliferation activities. As a conclusion, determination of an ideal scaffold through design and simulation analysis may assist the fabrication of bone scaffold through FDM at enhanced material properties.