Design and Fabrication of Manual Bone Scaffolds via Rapid Prototyping

Biomaterials,β-TCP (β-tricalcium phosphate),and polymeric blends were used on a selective laser sintering (SLS) system,a kind of rapid prototyping machine,to produce some scaffold specimens which were designed with CAD (Computer Aided Design) software according to bone tissue engineering scaffold characteristics and properties. The scaffolds were produced with a pore size 800μm,and regular geometrical cylinder or sphere pores,depending on the processing. Then the specimens were treated by high temperature to assess their suitability on SLS processing. Their microstructures which had been investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) exhibited fully interconnected pore which had a range size 500-800μm. X-ray diffraction analysis performed after high temperature treatment showed that β-TCP did not change. The porosity checked was about 71.29%. And the treated scaffolds could be provided an inter-connective network for the circulation of tissue fluid and hence sped up osteogenesis.