Predicting the elastic properties of selective laser sintered PCL/β-TCP bone scaffold materials using computational modelling

This study assesses the ability of finite element (FE) models to capture the mechanical behaviour of sintered orthopaedic scaffold materials. Individual scaffold struts were fabricated from a 50:50 wt% poly-ε-caprolactone (PCL)/β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) blend, using selective laser sintering. The tensile elastic modulus of single struts was determined experimentally. High resolution FE models of single struts were generated from micro-CT scans (28.8 μm resolution) and an effective strut elastic modulus was calculated from tensile loading simulations. Three material assignment methods were employed: (1) homogeneous PCL elastic constants, (2) composite PCL/β-TCP elastic constants based on rule of mixtures, and (3) heterogeneous distribution of micromechanically-determined elastic constants. In comparison with experimental results, the use of homogeneous PCL properties gave a good estimate of strut modulus; however it is not sufficiently representative of the real material as it neglects the β-TCP phase. The rule of mixtures method significantly overestimated strut modulus, while there was no significant difference between strut modulus evaluated using the micromechanically-determined elastic constants and experimentally evaluated strut modulus. These results indicate that the multi-scale approach of linking micromechanical modelling of the sintered scaffold material with macroscale modelling gives an accurate prediction of the mechanical behaviour of the sintered structure.