Design and assessment of the biomimetic capabilities of a Voronoi-based cancellous microstructure.

Abstract

Parameterized cellular microstructures allow for the development of efficient multiscale optimization strategies for the design of Functionally Graded Scaffolds (FGSs). This work assesses the biomimetic capabilities of the Voronoi-based cancelous bone microstructure introduced by Fantini et al. (2016) in terms of histomorphometric and elastic properties. Histomorphometric data of 23 bovine bone specimens and elastic data of 140 human bone specimens are used as reference. Based on the key findings that there exists a strong correspondence between the trabecular thickness and the solid volume fraction for natural cancelous bone, and that the stretching of the Voronoi microstructure is an effective means to induce anisotropy, the generative procedure by Fantini et al. (2016) is assessed and tuned to account for anisotropy and elastic properties. It is shown that the resulting mimetic microstructures have histomorphometric features and elastic properties that are in very good accordance to those of the natural samples. The outcomes of this work are a step forward towards the integration of the Voronoi-based microstructure into multiscale design tools.