Mechanical Behaviour Evaluation of Porous Scaffold for Tissue-Engineering Applications Using Finite Element Analysis

In recent years, finite element analysis (FEA) models of different porous scaffold shapes consisting of various materials have been developed to predict the mechanical behaviour of the scaffolds and to address the initial goals of 3D printing. Although mechanical properties of polymeric porous scaffolds are determined through FEA, studies on the polymer nanocomposite porous scaffolds are limited. In this paper, FEA with the integration of material designer and representative volume elements (RVE) was carried out on a 3D scaffold model to determine the mechanical properties of boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs)-reinforced gelatin (G) and alginate (A) hydrogel. The maximum stress regions were predicted by FEA stress distribution. Furthermore, the analysed material model and the boundary conditions showed minor deviation (4%) compared to experimental results. It was noted that the stress regions are detected at the zone close to the pore areas. These results indicated that the model used in this work could be beneficial in FEA studies on 3D-printed porous structures for tissue engineering applications.