3D porous Ti6Al4V scaffolds were directly fabricated by a rapid prototyping technology, 3D fiber deposition (3DF). In this study, scaffolds with different structures were fabricated by changing fiber spacing and fiber orientation. The influence of different architectures on mechanical properties and permeability of the scaffold were investigated. Mechanical analysis revealed that compressive strength and E-modulus increase with decreasing the porosity. Permeability measurements showed that not only the total porosity but also the porous structure can influence the permeability. 3DF was found to provide good control and reproducibility of the desired degree of porosity and the 3D structure. Results of this…
In this study, porous 3D fiber deposition titanium (3DFT) and 3DFT combined with porous biphasic calcium phosphate ceramic (3DFT+BCP) implants, both bare and 1 week cultured with autologous bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs), were implanted intramuscularly and orthotopically in 10 goats. To assess the dynamics of bone formation over time, fluorochrome markers were administered at 3, 6 and 9 weeks and the animals were sacrificed at 12 weeks after implantation. New bone in the implants was investigated by histology and histomorphometry of non-decalcified sections. Intramuscularly, no bone formation was found in any of the 3DFT implants, while a very limited…
3D fiber deposition is a technique that allows the development of metallic scaffolds with accurately controlled pore size, porosity and interconnecting pore size, which in turn permits a more precise investigation of the effect of structural properties on the in vivo behavior of biomaterials. This study analyzed the in vivo performance of titanium alloy scaffolds fabricated using 3D fiber deposition. The titanium alloy scaffolds with different structural properties, such as pore size, porosity and interconnecting pore size were implanted on the decorticated transverse processes of the posterior lumbar spine of 10 goats. Prior to implantation, implant structure and permeability were…
Three-dimensional (3D) fiber deposition (3DF), a rapid prototyping technology, was successfully directly applied to produce novel 3D porous Ti6Al4V scaffolds with fully interconnected porous networks and highly controllable porosity and pore size. A key feature of this technology is the 3D computer-controlled fiber depositing of Ti6Al4V slurry at room temperature to produce a scaffold, consisting of layers of directionally aligned Ti6Al4V fibers. In this study, the Ti6Al4V slurry was developed for the 3D fiber depositing process, and the parameters of 3D fiber depositing were optimized. The experimental results show how the parameters influence the structure of porous scaffold. The potential…