Abstract

Bone scaffolds serve a crucial role in tissue engineering, particularly in facilitating bone regeneration where natural repair is insufficient. Despite advancements in the fabrication of polymeric bone scaffolds, the challenge remains to optimize their mechanical resilience. Specifically, research on the fatigue behaviour of polymeric bone scaffolds is scarce. This study investigates the influence of pore architecture on the mechanical performance of poly-lactic-acid (PLA) scaffolds under quasi-static and cyclic compression. PLA scaffolds with a 60% porosity were fabricated using extrusion-based 3D printing in various designs: Gyroid, Lidinoid, Fischer–Koch, IWP, and Voronoi. Results demonstrated that Gyroid scaffolds had the highest compressive strength (6.6 MPa), followed by Lidinoid, Fischer–Koch, IWP, and Voronoi designs. Increased strut thickness was linked to higher compressive strength. However, normalized fatigue resistance showed a different pattern. While scaffolds resisted fatigue cycles at low strain amplitudes, fatigue damage was observed at higher strains. Voronoi structures exhibited the highest normalized fatigue performance, enduring around 58,000 cycles at 85% strain amplitude, followed by Gyroid, Fischer–Koch, Lidinoid, and IWP structures. Enhanced fatigue performance in different topologies correlated with the minimum cross-sectional area of scaffolds. Given the importance of both static and fatigue strength, the Gyroid topology emerges as the superior choice overall.

RAS ID

70180

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

8-1-2024

Volume

16

Issue

15

Funding Information

Edith Cowan University

School

Centre for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing / School of Engineering

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

MDPI

Comments

Bakhtiari, H., Nouri, A., & Tolouei-Rad, M. (2024). Fatigue performance of 3D-printed poly-lactic-acid bone scaffolds with triply periodic minimal surface and voronoi pore structures. Polymers, 16(15), 2145. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16152145

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.3390/polym16152145