Influence of layer thickness and build orientation on compressive strength of 3D printed scaffolds prototypes

Abstract

The research on fabrication of customised porous bone scaffolds through additive manufacturing has been gaining momentum since last couple of years. This paper presents an analysis of compressive strength (CS) of two slightly different calcium sulfate based proprietary materials namely, Zp150 and VisiJet PXL Core. The comparison is performed on different layer thickness (LT) and builds orientation (BO) of ZPrinter ®450 using full factorial design approach. Initially, a computer aided design (CAD) model of the porous scaffold with designed porosity is prepared in a CAD modelling software and then additive manufacturing is done on four different LT (0.089 mm, 0.101 mm, 0.112 mm and 0.125 mm) and three BO (along x-axis, y-axis and z-axis) of ZPrinter ®450. Analysis of CS reveals that prototypes made of VisiJet PXL Core material have shown a better strength in comparison with their Zp150 counterparts for similar LT and BO. In general, prototypes of both the materials printed along x-axis posses better CS for all the LT. Moreover, the prototype of VisiJet PXL Core material fabricated along x-axis on layer thickness 0.089 mm possesses highest (1.17 MPa) CS among all the prototypes.