Sara Ahmadi
Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran
Title: Developing of a 3D printing method to fabricate a bone replacement hydroxyapatite/polycaprolactone scaffolds
Biography
Biography: Sara Ahmadi
Abstract
Recently, usage of 3D printing methods to fabricate all type of human organ has been considered. Among all of them, 3D printed scaffolds to be utilized as bone replacement implant have been investigated comprehensively. The advantage of this method is fabricating an implant with exact dimensions of the actual bone tissue. In addition, this method is faster than the conventional methods which surgeon used to apply to replace the injured or infected bone tissue. First of all, polycaprolactone with different concentrations of hydroxyapatite (0, 10%, 15% and 20%) were mixed completely. The HA/PCL composite was prepared with 40%, 50%, and 60% porosity. Then by using a spinneret, we transfer the HA/PCL composite to filament with a specific diameter (1.65-1.85 mm). We used these filaments to feed the 3D printer instrument. As a model, a femur bone of rabbit was used to design the scaffolds. The femur bone of rabbit was 3D scanned and transferred to Simplify 3D software to prepare the 3D printing pattern. The open source 3D printer printed the HA/PCL filament exactly similar to the rabbit bone. The mechanical properties of the 3D printed scaffold was determined and compared to femur rabbit bone. In terms of 3D printed scaffold characterization, the yield strength, stress-strain, force, stiffness, compressive modulus, and surface morphology of them have been studied.