Mechanical Behavior of Ti6Al4V Scaffolds Filled with CaSiO3 for Implant Applications

Abstract

Triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) are becoming increasingly attractive due to their biomedical applications and ease of production using additive manufacturing techniques. In the present paper, the architecture of porous scaffolds was utilized to seek for the optimized cellular structure subjected to compression loading. The deformation and stress distribution of five lightweight scaffolds, namely: Rectangular, primitive, lattice, gyroid and honeycomb Ti6Al4V structures were studied. Comparison of finite element simulations and experimental compressive test results was performed to illustrate the failure mechanism of these scaffolds. The experimental compressive results corroborate reasonably with the finite element analyses. Results of this study can be used for bone implants, biomaterial scaffolds and antibacterial applications, produced from the Ti6Al4V scaffold built by a selective laser melting (SLM) method. In addition, Ti6Al4V manufactured metallic lattice was filled by wollastonite (CaSiO3) through spark plasma sintering (SPS) to illustrate the method for the production of a metallic-ceramic composite suitable for bone tissue engineering.