Fatigue properties of Ti6Al4V cellular specimens fabricated via SLM: CAD vs real geometry

Additively Manufactured Porous Ti6Al4V for Bone Implants: A Review

Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) alloy is one of the most widely used orthopedic implant materials due to its mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, and biocompatibility nature. Porous Ti64 structures are gaining more research interest as bone implants as they can help in reducing the stress-shielding effect when compared to their solid counterpart. The literature shows that porous Ti64 implants fabricated using different additive manufacturing (AM) process routes, such as laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) and electron beam melting (EBM) can be tailored to mimic the mechanical properties of natural bone. This review paper categorizes porous implant designs into non-gradient (uniform) and gradient (non-uniform) porous structures. Gradient porous design appears to be more promising for orthopedic applications due to its closeness towards natural bone morphology and improved mechanical properties. In addition, this paper outlines the details on bone structure and its properties, mechanical properties, fatigue behavior, multifunctional porous implant designs, current challenges, and literature gaps in the research studies on porous Ti64 bone implants.

Mechanical properties and cytocompatibility of dense and porous Zn produced by laser powder bed fusion for biodegradable implant applications

In this work, the macrotexture of dense Zn produced by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) was studied and the mechanical properties for different tensile bar orientations were measured. The compressive strength of LPBF Zn scaffolds with five different unit cells was measured for a relative density of 20-51%. In addition, the response of mesenchymal stem cells to the LPBF Zn scaffolds was studied. The elastic modulus and yield strength of dense LPBF Zn were 110.0 ± 0.2 GPa and 78.0 ± 0.4 MPa, respectively in the vertical and 81.0 ± 0.4 GPa and 55.0 ± 0.7 MPa in the horizontal direction. This could be explained by the preferential orientation of the 〈0001〉 direction in the building plane. For LPBF Zn scaffolds, the plateau stress for the different unit cells varied between 8 and 33 MPa for a 30% relative density. Calcein staining, lactate production and DNA measurements over a 13-day period showed that mesenchymal stem cell viability was low for Zn scaffolds. This work forms a basis for further research into the LPBF texture formation of metals with hexagonal crystal structure, guides implant designers in scaffold unit cell and relative density selection and motivates further research into the cytocompatibility of LPBF Zn. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is a manufacturing technology which allows the seamless combination of porous and non-porous volumes in a metallic implant and is used in the orthopedic manufacturing industry today. The production of highly dense Zn with LPBF has been described earlier, but the mechanical properties of the resulting material have not been studied in detail yet. This study is the first to report on (i) the influence of different scanning strategies on the macrotexture of dense LPBF Zn and the resulting anisotropy of its mechanical properties, (ii) the relationship between the relative density and strength for LPBF Zn scaffolds with five different unit cells and (iii) the in vitro response of mesenchymal stem cells to these scaffolds.

Fatigue life of additively manufactured Ti6Al4V scaffolds under tension-tension, tension-compression and compression-compression fatigue load

Mechanical performance of additively manufactured (AM) Ti6Al4V scaffolds has mostly been studied in uniaxial compression. However, in real-life applications, more complex load conditions occur. To address this, a novel sample geometry was designed, tested and analyzed in this work. The new scaffold geometry, with porosity gradient between the solid ends and scaffold middle, was successfully used for quasi-static tension, tension-tension (R = 0.1), tension-compression (R = −1) and compression-compression (R = 10) fatigue tests. Results show that global loading in tension-tension leads to a decreased fatigue performance compared to global loading in compression-compression. This difference in fatigue life can be understood fairly well by approximating the local tensile stress amplitudes in the struts near the nodes. Local stress based Haigh diagrams were constructed to provide more insight in the fatigue behavior. When fatigue life is interpreted in terms of local stresses, the behavior of single struts is shown to be qualitatively the same as bulk Ti6Al4V. Compression-compression and tension-tension fatigue regimes lead to a shorter fatigue life than fully reversed loading due to the presence of a mean local tensile stress. Fractographic analysis showed that most fracture sites were located close to the nodes, where the highest tensile stresses are located.