Modeling and Assessment of Porosity Effects on Mechanical Properties of Tissue Scaffolds

Mechanical properties of scaffolds are important for fabricating engineered tissues. However, localized mechanical properties of scaffold cannot be directly obtained from experiments. This study provides a solid modeling approach to simulate mechanical behaviors of alginate scaffolds with different porosity. A scaffold micro-domain has been modeled as made of sub-units, arranged in a sphere-based pore architecture. An expression to calculate porosity was also derived for the scaffold architecture. Finite element simulations of compressing alginate scaffolds were performed to evaluate the effect of porosity on quasi-static mechanical behavior. The developed FEA model is capable of computing scaffold strength and predicting localized mechanical behavior without destructive materials testing.