Page 167 - IJB-9-3

International Journal of Bioprinting

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Flow performance of porous implants with

different geometry: Line, surface, and volume
structures

Zhuxun Tang 1,2† , Yueting Zhou , Lifang Ma , Jian Li *
1†
3
2
1 School of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092,
P.R. China
2 Beijing Key Laboratory of Rehabilitation Technical Aids for Old-Age Disability, National Research
Center for Rehabilitation Technical Aids, Beijing, 100176, P.R. China
3
School of Automation, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, 100876, P.R.
China
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: 3D Printing of Advanced Biomedical Devices)

Abstract

Additive manufacturing has enormous advantage of personalized adaptation.
Particularly, porous implants have been widely used in clinical practice. Porous
implant has the advantages and abilities to promote tissue growth and mass
transfer, which are closely related to pore morphology. The purpose of this study
is to investigate the effects of three porous structures, i.e., line structure, surface
structure, and volume structure, on the flow properties of implants at different
porosity. Therefore, a unit cell was selected from each type of structure (oct truss
[OT], gyroid [G], and schwarz p [P]) as a typical cell, where OT is a line structure, G is
a surface structure, and P is a volume structure. The scaffolds with different porosity
† These authors contributed equally
to this work. of these cells were customized, and the shape parameters were measured and
calculated. Then, the flow performance of three different scaffolds in Dulbecco’s
*Corresponding author: modified Eagle’s medium was simulated by using computational fluid dynamics,
Jian Li (jianli_628@126.com)
and the flow velocity, permeability, and wall shear stress, which can reflect their
Citation: Tang Z, Zhou Y, Ma L, biological properties, were calculated and compared. The results showed that the
et al., 2023, Flow performance
of porous implants with different pore shape and porosity of porous implants greatly affected the physical parameters
geometry: Line, surface, and volume and performance of structures. These findings will contribute to unit cell selection
structures. Int J Bioprint, 9(3): 700. and future performance optimization of porous implants.
https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.700
Received: October 28, 2022
Accepted: December 14, 2022 Keywords: Porous implants; Computational fluid dynamics; Flow velocity;
Published Online: March 6, 2023 Permeability; Flow shear stress
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution
License, permitting distribution 1. Introduction
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is The microstructure of cancellous bone is composed of irregular porous structure with
properly cited. a porosity of 30%–90%. In bone tissue engineering, porous bone implants are often
used to simulate the environment of cells growth, and to provide channels for nutrients
Publisher’s Note: Whioce
[1]
Publishing remains neutral with and waste transport . In contrast to traditional methods for creating random porous
regard to jurisdictional claims in structures , additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is a technique of stacking materials
[2]
published maps and institutional layer by layer to create solid objects. Based on digital model files, this technology can
affiliations.

Volume 9 Issue 3 (2023) 159 https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.700