Patient-specific Voronoi tessellation-based ceramic scaffold in load-bearing defects
REZAPOURIAN M. 1, CHELOEE DARABI A. 2, SCHMAUDER S. 2, HUSSAINOVA I. 1
1 Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia, Estonia; 2 Institute for Materials Testing, Materials Science and Strength of Materials, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany, Germany
Successful treatment of large complex long bone defects remains an orthopedic challenge. The trabecular bone structure is composed of non-homogeneous interconnected struts. Besides influencing bone porosity, interconnectivity can also affect bone's mechanical properties. Manipulation of the internal pore architecture to match the biomechanical properties of bone scaffolds is crucial. In recent years, functionally graded porous scaffolds have drawn attention as a way to reproduce the morphology of the host bone, among them functionally graded ceramic scaffolds receiving particular attention. Ceramic materials used in bio-applications are suitable candidates for the design of bone implants due to their excellent biocompatibility and high strength. Ceramics with lesser stiffness compared to metals make them potential candidates for biomedical applications. This study concerns the design of regular and irregular biomimetic ceramic-based scaffold designs for bone tissue engineering. To achieve close morphology, and characteristic parameters to those of human bone, Voronoi tessellation was utilized to create homogeneous and non-homogeneous interconnected pore networks. An appropriate scaffold for load-bearing applications should be compatible with the host bone's mechanical properties. Therefore, numerical methods were employed to predict the impact of irregularity patterns of pores on the mechanical properties of scaffolds.