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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Additively Manufactured Multi-Morphology Bone-like

Porous Scaffolds: Experiments and Micro-Computed

Tomography-Based Finite Element Modeling Approaches

Reza Noroozi , Farzad Tatar , Ali Zolfagharian , Roberto Brighenti ,
3
1,2
3
4
Mohammad Amin Shamekhi , Abbas Rastgoo , Amin Hadi *, Mahdi Bodaghi *
6
1
2
5
1 Department of Engineering, School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG11 8NS, UK
2 School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3 Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 181/A, 43124 Parma, Italy
4 School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria 3216, Australia
5 Department of Polymer Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Sarvestan Branch, Sarvestan, Iran
6 Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Yasuj University of Medical Sciences, Yasuj, Iran
Abstract: Tissue engineering, whose aim is to repair or replace damaged tissues by combining the principle of biomaterials
and cell transplantation, is one of the most important and interdisciplinary fields of regenerative medicine. Despite remarkable
progress, there are still some limitations in the tissue engineering field, among which designing and manufacturing suitable
scaffolds. With the advent of additive manufacturing (AM), a breakthrough happened in the production of complex geometries.
In this vein, AM has enhanced the field of bioprinting in generating biomimicking organs or artificial tissues possessing the
required porous graded structure. In this study, triply periodic minimal surface structures, suitable to manufacture scaffolds
mimicking bone’s heterogeneous nature, have been studied experimentally and numerically; the influence of the printing
direction and printing material has been investigated. Various multi-morphology scaffolds, including gyroid, diamond, and
I-graph and wrapped package graph (I-WP), with different transitional zone, have been three-dimensional (3D) printed and
tested under compression. Further, a micro-computed tomography (µCT) analysis has been employed to obtain the real geometry
of printed scaffolds. Finite element analyses have been also performed and compared with experimental results. Finally, the
scaffolds’ behavior under complex loading has been investigated based on the combination of µCT and finite element modeling.
Keywords: Bone scaffolds; Minimal Surface lattices; Additive manufacturing; Multi-morphology; Finite element modeling

*Correspondence to: Amin Hadi, Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Yasuj University of Medical Sciences, Yasuj, Iran; amin.hadi@yums.
ac.ir; Mahdi Bodaghi, Department of Engineering, School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG11 8NS, UK;
mahdi.bodaghi@ntu.ac.uk
Received: March 05, 2022; Accepted: April 04, 2022; Published Online: May 06, 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Mechanical Behaviors of 3D/4D Printing Biomaterials and Smart Structure)

Citation: Noroozi R, Tatar F, Zolfagharian A, et al., 2022, Additively Manufactured Multi-Morphology Bone-Like Porous Scaffolds: Experiments
and Micro-Computed Tomography-Finite Element Modeling Approaches, Int J Bioprint, 8(3):556. http://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.v8i3.556

1. Introduction creating artificial tissues is using additive manufacturing
(AM), that is, bioprinting. The realm of bioprinting is
Tissue engineering is a multidisciplinary field that
develops the improvement, restoration, or maintenance divided into three areas: Biomimicry, autonomous self-
[8]
of natural tissues that have been either damaged or assembly, and mini-tissue . Among these, one important
deteriorated [1-3] . The main tissues and organs that have field in biomimicry is focused on scaffolds on which the
[9]
been under the focus of researchers include bone, cartilage, tissue is going to be built . To focus more on bone tissue
skin, blood vessels, muscle, etc. [4-7] . One method for engineering, there have been a variety of problems that
© 2022 Author(s). This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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