3D printing-assisted design of scaffold structures

Rapid prototyping has emerged as a very auspicious manufacturing method of fabricating tissue engineering scaffolds. Using a 3D CAD design, the 3D printer features the ability of producing the predetermined forms and structures with very high level of accuracy and repeatability. Additionally, the 3D-printed tissue scaffolds are meant to act as replaceable constructs in a very demanding environment. The challenging conditions of the human body set high criteria demands that the scaffold should be capable of fulfilling. One of the most crucial demands is the capability of the scaffold to exhibit the desired mechanical properties depending on the loading conditions that it must cope up against. A mechanical property investigation of different scaffold designs can provide crucial information concerning this key factor in the criteria profile of a functional scaffold design. The target of the present study is to compare the mechanical properties of different scaffold designs that, however, feature same porosity and similar dimensions. Compressive strength testing was conducted in three 3D-printed scaffold designs. Also, a finite element study was conducted, simulating the compressive strength testing. The results of the compression testing experiment were found to be in good agreement with the computational analysis results. Furthermore, a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation was conducted in order to look into the fluid shear stress inside the scaffold. Finally, the properties of the biomaterial hydroxyapatite were used in order to investigate the compressive and shear mechanical behavior of the aforementioned designs by conducting a finite element study.