Design and Simulation of Porous Ti–6Al–4V Alloy Structures for Additive Manufacturing of Bioimplants

Abstract

This paper presents the efforts made in the design and finite element simulation of porous Ti–6Al–4V alloy structures to determine the elastic modulus of porous parts produced with the additive manufacturing technology for biomedical applications. The major problem concerning with the typically used metallic bioimplants is the mismatch of elastic modulus between the implant and the human bone, which resulted in the degradation of surrounding bone structure and disassociation of the implant. The present work is focused on designing the porous Ti–6Al–4V alloy structures and also on studying the influence of porosity on the elastic modulus of implants made of Ti–6Al–4V alloy material. The three-dimensional strut-based cellular structure is employed to build the porous structures ranging from 10 to 50% porosity volume. This work established the appropriate porosity to minimize the mismatch of elastic modulus between the implant and the bone by adding the porosity to the implant structure. It is found that the Ti–6Al–4V structure with the porosity of 40 vol.% possesses the elastic modulus about 74 GPa. These results demonstrate the proof of tailoring the elastic modulus of bioimplants.