Computer-aided design and selective laser melting of porous biomimetic materials

AbstractThe goal of the carried out research is to fabricate, by selective laser melting (SLM), a metallic and/or ceramic scaffold based on a virtual model corresponding to the actual loss of a patient's craniofacial bone. Scaffolds are produced with biocompatible materials that can be employed for a long time in an organism or may be subject to gradual degradation and resorption. The real manufacturing process of a scaffold is preceded with creating a model of an element in the stl format that allows to present the element surface by means of a net of triangles. Once the shape is defined of a unit cell and its net parameters, i.e. height, depth and width, they are duplicated with appropriate mathematical algorithms as a result of which a strictly defined, densed and complicated structure of pores defined by a designer is created. The data concerning a virtual 3D porous implant model was transferred into a SLM device and a scaffold was produced from metallic and/or ceramic powders with this machine. The s...