The Bits That Matter: A Bone Remodelling Approach For Biphasic Metamaterial Optimisation

The widespread proliferation of cellular lattices in engineering design has entailed a revolution in the design of lightweight and multifunctional structures. Furthermore, the development of auxetic metamaterials has led to applications in fields ranging from biomedical to civil engineering. However, cellular lattices suffer from the development...

Exploring the mechanical properties of bending- and stretching-dominated metamaterials

Nature has always had randomness in many ways. Natural cellular structures, specifically, have used randomized microarchitectures to form mechanically efficient materials, such as wood, sponge, and trabecular bone. Mechanical metamaterials are a class of artificial microarchitected materials designed to carry tensions and compressions with...

Validation and optimization of Patient-specific orthopedic plate design for proximal femur fixation in slipped capital femoral epiphysis patients

Slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE) is a condition in adolescents affecting the proximal femur. Increased mechanical forces result in fracture of the growth plate. Factors increasing the mechanical forces include for example obesity and endocrine disorders. As a result of the fracture a shift of the bone shaft towards the femur head occurs,...

3D printed smart transtibial prosthesis equipped with temperature and pressure sensory systems

Integration of the sensory systems inside patient-specific medical devices (e.g., implants or prosthesis) can provide additional measurement data at different time points. This can result in improving the traditional designs of those medical devices, and consequently leading to increasing the patient’s comfort and quality of life. By doing...

Correlation between the Mechanical Properties and the Structure of the Equine Osteochondral Interface During Maturation

The osteochondral interface is known to smoothly mitigate the stress concentration over the surface area of the subchondral bone, with a structural transition from the cartilage to bone. These sites in the body are exposed to high forces, which makes them prone to failure. To improve the repair strategies, a better understanding of the...

A Characterization Method for Hard-Soft Material Interfaces in Structural Optimization

The distribution of multiple materials within a single structure is a strategy that various biological systems rely on to achieve outstanding mechanical performances. These biological examples illustrate the effective utilization of hard rigid and soft flexible materials in particular. The proper composition of such hard-soft materials exceeds...

Development of a Workflow for Designing Patient-Specific Mandibular Reconstruction Implants and Predicting their Performance through Experimentally Validated Finite Element Models

Restoration of the normal mandibular form and function is attempted with reconstructive surgery. The current standard procedure to restore continuity defects of the mandible involves free tissue transfer with an autologous bone flap. Even though the success rates are high, several critical drawbacks have been associated with this procedure,...

Design and fabrication of 3D-printed hard-soft interfaces made from PLA and hydrogel

The mechanical properties of biological hard-soft interfaces change gradually over a small surface area to prevent the formation of stress concentrations through variations in the interface’s chemical composition, microstructure and geometry. The bone-tendon/ligament and bone-cartilage interface are the most prominent hard-soft interfaces within...

Large bone-implants for osteochondral regeneration, fabrication and ex-vivo testing

The high frequency of osteoarthritis in those aged above 60 years combined with the observing trend of overpopulation leads to increased healthcare costs. To date, clinical treatments seem to be insufficient to restore cartilage and underlying bone degeneration. Bioprinting fabrication techniques constitute a promising approach to mimic and...

Design and optimisation of an additively manufactured patient-specific partial mandible reconstruction implant

Additive manufacturing (AM) provides the opportunity for complex porous designs, without the costs depending on batch size. Therefore patient-specific implants can be rapidly manufactured. In clinical practice, reconstruction of the mandible is needed in case of bone tumors or trauma. Part of the mandible is removed and the shape of the missing...

Voxel-based additive manufacturing of biomimetic multiscale anisotropic materials

Polymer composites are found to have high performance efficiency because of its highly flexible polymer matrix and stiff fibres or functional fillers. The matrix and the reinforcements are two main components for a strong and tough composite. The performance of these composites highly depend on the material property of the matrix and the...

A finite element model to determine the bactericidal and cytotoxic properties of nanopatterned surfaces: A parametric study

The fundamentals of the nanopatterned surface can be found on the wings of cicada. These bactericidal surfaces are artificially mimicked on the surface of the implant to reduce the infection rate, which is one of the main complication after joint replacement. The bactericidal properties of the nanopatterned surface are a promising feature....