Prediction of the effective elastic moduli of porous bone scaffolds: Analytical and computational studies

Bone scaffolds are porous structures that are used to repair, regenerate and restore the functions of damaged bone tissue. Scaffolds should have sufficient mechanical strength since they are subjected to different mechanical loadings as implanted in the defect site. Recently, there has been growing interest in the application of micromechanical approaches to estimate the effective mechanical properties of these structures. However, most of the micromechanical methods are originally proposed for dilute concentration condition in which all of the pores are isolated and they are not suitable for the structures like scaffolds with an interconnected network of pores. This paper presents the modified version of the Mori–Tanaka approach which is able to consider the interconnectivity between the pores and is completely appropriate for investigation of the mechanical behavior of the scaffolds. The validity of the developed relations is investigated via statistical finite element analysis. The effective moduli of the numerous scaffolds available in the literature are also computed using the suggested modifications. Comparison between the findings of this paper and published empirical studies shows that for the scaffolds with interconnected pore networks, using these modifications significantly improves the results in comparison with the case of using the classical Mori–Tanaka scheme.