Design and Fabrication of 3D printed Scaffolds with a Mechanical Strength Comparable to Cortical Bone to Repair Large Bone Defects

TLDR

Large bone defect regeneration requires scaffolds with large interconnected pores and compressive strength comparable to cortical bone (100–150 MPa). We aim to design a novel hexagonal architecture for a glass‑ceramic scaffold that achieves an anisotropic, highly porous structure with a compressive strength of 110 MPa. The scaffold is fabricated using a 3D‑printed hexagonal architecture that yields anisotropic, highly porous glass‑ceramic constructs. The hexagonal scaffolds exhibit high fatigue resistance (1 M cycles at 1–10 MPa), flexural strength of 30 MPa, and strengths 150 times greater than polymeric/composite scaffolds and 5 times greater than ceramic/glass scaffolds at similar porosity, indicating suitability for load‑bearing bone defect repair.

Abstract

Abstract A challenge in regenerating large bone defects under load is to create scaffolds with large and interconnected pores while providing a compressive strength comparable to cortical bone (100–150 MPa). Here we design a novel hexagonal architecture for a glass-ceramic scaffold to fabricate an anisotropic, highly porous three dimensional scaffolds with a compressive strength of 110 MPa. Scaffolds with hexagonal design demonstrated a high fatigue resistance (1,000,000 cycles at 1–10 MPa compressive cyclic load), failure reliability and flexural strength (30 MPa) compared with those for conventional architecture. The obtained strength is 150 times greater than values reported for polymeric and composite scaffolds and 5 times greater than reported values for ceramic and glass scaffolds at similar porosity. These scaffolds open avenues for treatment of load bearing bone defects in orthopaedic, dental and maxillofacial applications.