DESIGN AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF 3D-PRINTED POROUS POLYLACTIC ACID/HYDROXYAPATITE SCAFFOLDS

Abstract

Different designs of three-dimensional (3D) structures have gained increasing importance in the field of bone tissue engineering. Appropriate porosity and adequate mechanical properties are essen-tial requirements for scaffolds. The porosity and mechanical properties of the scaffolds higly depend on their 3D-modeled design. By analyzing the mechanical properties of scaffolds of different designs, it can be confirmed that it can be an important potential platform for regenerating damaged bone tis-sue. In this study, a wide variety of unit cells and lattice structures with different pore structures of polylactic acid (PLA)/hydroxyapatite (HA) based scaffolds were modeled and designed. Structural analyzes of the designed models were carried out in the simulation environment and their mechanical properties were compared with similar studies. According to the obtained results, PLA/HA-based scaffolds with different designs are thought to have high potential for bone tissue engineering appli-cations.