Computer Simulation and Optimisation of Tissue Engineering Scaffolds: Mechanical and Vascular Behaviour

Abstract

Additive biomanufacturing processes are increasingly recognised as ideal techniques to produce scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. These scaffolds must be biocompatible, biodegradable, with appropriate porosity, pore structure and pore distribution and optimal vascularisation, with both surface and structural compatibility. Surface compatibility means a chemical, biological and physical suitability to the host tissue. Structural compatibility corresponds to an optimal adaptation to the mechanical behaviour of the host tissue. Recent advances in tissue engineering field are increasingly relying on modelling and simulation. This paper proposes a novel computational tool combining structural, computational fluid dynamics and topological optimisation schemes, to predict and optimise both mechanical and vascular behaviour of scaffolds for soft and hard tissue applications, with different topological architectures and levels of porosity. This tool is particularly important to quantify the structural heterogeneity and scaffold mechanical properties with a designed microstructure subjected to either a single or a multiple load distribution. This computational tool enables the simulation of biological flows in vascular passages of scaffolds. The blood flow considered in this study is a complex fluid comprising a suspension of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets within a newtonian plasma. A topological optimisation scheme is being developed to obtain the ideal scaffold topological architectures.