OBJECTIVETo investigate an ideal modeling method of designing 3D mesh scaffold substitutes based on tissue engineering to restore mandibular bone defects. By analyzing the theoretical model from titanium scaffolds fabricated by 3D printing, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methodology were verified.

METHODSBased on the CT scanned data of a subject, the Mimics 15.0 and Geomagic studio 12.0 reverse engineering software were adopted to generate surface model of mandibular bone and the defect area was separated from the 3D model of bone. Then prosthesis was designed via mirror algorithm, in which outer shape was used as the external shape of scaffold. Unigraphics software NX 8.5 was applied on Boolean calculation of subtraction between prosthesis and regular microstructure structure and ANSYS 14.0 software was used to design the inner construction of 3D mesh scaffolds. The topological structure and the geometrical parameters of 3D mesh titanium scaffolds were adjusted according to the aim of optimized structure and maximal strength with minimal weight. The 3D mesh scaffolds solid model through two kinds of computer-aided methods was input into 3D printing equipment to fabricate titanium scaffolds.

RESULTSIndividual scaffolds were designed successfully by two modeling methods. The finite element optimization made 10% decrease of the stress peak and volume decrease of 43%, and the porosity increased to 76.32%. This modeling method was validated by 3D printing titanium scaffold to be feasible and effective.

CONCLUSIONS3D printing technology combined with finite element topology optimization to obtain the ideal mandibular 3D mesh scaffold is feasible and effective.