Implicit-Function-Based Design and Additive Manufacturing of Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering

摘要

Regeneration or repairing an injured tissue using porous scaffolds, to rehabilitate the mechanical, biological and chemical actions, is one of the better options available, for tissue engineering and trauma cure. In this work, the nature-inspired gyroid architecture is selected for design of porous scaffolds. Implicit-function-based modeling is performed to understand the basic geometric characteristics of this complex architecture. A study on the effect of tuning the offset parameter (t) used in the gyroid equation, on the scaffold porosity and specific surface area, is carried out. Further, gyroid scaffolds with varying porosities and interconnected pores are modeled and subsequently manufactured using the fused deposition modeling (FDM) additive manufacturing (AM) technique, with polylactic acid (PLA) filaments. Results show that the function-based gyroid modeling is ideally suited for the design and AM of continuous porous scaffolds. Compression test is also conducted on AMed scaffolds to examine their load bearing ability. Tests reveal that the porous scaffolds have compressive strength equivalent of that of the human trabecular bone. Additionally, this study investigated in vitro, the cell viability of PLA gyroid scaffolds by measuring the cell proliferation after 48 and 72 h showing expected biocompatibility. In conclusion, the FDM manufactured gyroid scaffolds seem to be a viable alternative for bone tissue engineering applications.