Acta Polytechnica CTU Proceedings 26:127–133, 2020 © Czech Technical University in Prague, 2020

doi:10.14311/APP.2020.26.0126 available online at https://ojs.cvut.cz/ojs/index.php/app

MECHANICAL TESTING AND NUMERICAL MODELLING OF

POROUS STRUCTURES IMPROVING OSEINTEGRATION OF
IMPLANTS

Petr Vakrčka∗ , Aleš Jíra, Petra Hájková

Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Mechanics, Thákurova 7,
166 29 Prague 6, Czech Republic
∗
corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract. Implants, such as dental, are ordinary devices in medical care nowadays, even though
they are quite expensive. In the present study, the use of trabecular and gyroid structures as external
layer of implants is examined. The advantage of porous structures compared to surface modification of
compact implants is the possibility to be fabricated by additive manufacturing together with the whole
implant. The additive manufacturing also allows us to produce various shapes with controlled porosity
for bone ingrowth.
The design of 6 types of trabecular and 4 types of gyroid structures is part of the study. The tra-
becular structures are strut-based, whereas the gyroid structures are based on a wall system. The study
is focused on mechanical testing of samples which were 3D printed from the titanium alloy Ti6Al4V.
The gyroid structures, which we evaluated as more reliable, were chosen for numerical modelling. Other
observed advantages and disadvantages of the structures are also discussed.
Keywords: Implant, cancellous bone, trabecular structure, gyroid, titanium alloy, additive manufac-
turing, numerical model.

1. Introduction 3D printers. At first, the implants meant to be for

privileged ones. Nowadays, implants have become
Thanks to modern medicine and advancing techno-
a device which is available for the ordinary people.
logical progress, people across the world live longer
Even now, there are many challenges for engineers.
than ever before. The technology has become vital
The crucial topic is the contact area between an im-
for giving patients the best care as possible. Many
plant and living tissue. The presented study sets
patients in the past had to suffer because there was
a goal to knock down the problem by using a dif-
no technology which could support them. Nowadays,
ferent approach than most of the current implants.
people do not have to suffer anymore because technol-
In general, commonly used compact implants need
ogy is on their side. Since engineers started improving
various surface modifications for adequate oseintegra-
medical care, new medical devices have been created,
tion. Thanks to additive manufacturing, we can print
modern software has been adapted, and technology
almost every shape using a 3D printer. It allows us
has increase hospitality for every patient.
to substitute the surface modification with a suitable
For example, laparoscopic surgeries have become structure which can minimize the risk of implant loss.
the standard for many operations. They are minimally Trabecular and gyroid structures, which can be seen
invasive, cause less pain, and shorten the recovery all around ourselves, can be the answer to this compli-
time. In recent years, the next great achievement in cated question. Figure 1 shows examples of presence
the field of medicine is targeted cancer therapy, which of the structures in nature.
can interfere with the spread of cancer by blocking
cells involved in tumor growth. Worth mentioning
is also Czech plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahač, who 2. Geometrical model
performed the first full face transplant, and the list The main aim of the study is to design an artificial
of recent achievements in the medical field goes on. model of 3D-printed microstructure with similar prop-
However, the presented study focuses on the particular erties as cancellous bone. It could allow us to design
field of medicine which is implantology. an implant that does not need a surface modification.
The evolution made the body as perfect as possible. We substitute the surface modification with porous
That is why the attempt to adequate reconstruction micro-structures. This method has a variety of rea-
has been close to pursuing the holy grail. For this rea- sons. First of all, there is no universal approach of
son, the majority of attempts have been unsuccessful. surface modification suitable for all biomaterials, but
The human effort has made massive progress since the porous structures can be used for all additive man-
the first primitive implants from ancient Egypt until ufactured products. The second huge advantage is
custom-made implants made from titanium alloys by the control of pore size. This gives us a chance to

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structure for our purpose is through a level surface.

It is defined by the function:

F (x, y, z) = t , (1)

where F determines the form of the surface via space-

dividing function and t is the constant which deter-
mines the volume fractions of the divided space. If we
set the parameter t to zero and substitute the F with
an appropriate function, we receive the equation:

sin(x̃) ∗ cos(ỹ) + sin(ỹ) ∗ cos(z̃) + sin(z̃) ∗ cos(x̃) = 0, (2)

where x̃, ỹ and z̃ are scaled spatial ordinates, such

that x̃ = 2π ∗ x/a, ỹ = 2π ∗ y/a, z = 2π ∗ z/a. The
variable a is the cubic unit cell edge length [4].
We designed 4 types of gyroid structures in total.
Specimens of all the gyroid structures had same dimen-
sions as the trabecular structures – 14×14×14 mm.
The pore size was optimized based on the literature.
For example, the optimal pore size for bone ingrowth
is 600 µm according to Taniguchi et al. [5]. Hulbert et
Figure 1. Various application of trabecular structures
al. [6] mentioned that the pore size cannot be smaller
in nature [1]. In the top we can see the structure
of leaf. In the bottom, we can see trabecular bone than 100 µm for successful bone ingrowth. Based on
morphology [2]. the available literature, the range of 350–800 µm was
considered as applicable. Gyroid structures number 1,
2 and 3 fulfilled the criterion for bone ingrowth accord-
optimize the pore size to maximize the bone ingrowth. ing to the literature, gyroid structure number 4 was
In the end, if we change the porosity of the microstruc- slightly out of range. The pore sizes of the designed
ture, we can modify Young’s modulus to minimize trabecular and gyroid structures are summarized in
the stress shield effect which can lead to resorption of Table 1.
the human bone.
At first, trabecular (strut-based) structures were se- 3. Mechanical testing
lected. After designing and fabrication of the samples, The trabecular and gyroid structures which were pro-
the microstructure was observed due to problematic duced by additive manufacturing underwent mechan-
different cooling rate which is caused by placing one ical testing. The processes of manufacturing and
layer upon the other during fabrication process. Thin mechanical testing were similar for both types of
bars seemed to be prone to fracture due to cooling the structures. The goal was to obtain material char-
process of the structures. These fractures can split in acteristics of the structures and compare them with
time and lead to necrosis or aseptic loos of implant. It the results of the numerical simulation, following nu-
was assumed that the change of morphology could give merical model verification. The essential material
us more suitable structure and the problem could be characteristic for this purpose was the global modu-
eliminated. What is more, the strength of trabecular lus of elasticity (or global elastic modulus) of each
structures was not as high as it had been expected, structure.
probably due to the fractures. This was the main Mechanical testing was performed in the form of
reason why structures based on a wall system were compression tests. For this purpose, at least three
chosen for mechanical testing and numerical model- specimens of each structure were produced, 21 speci-
ing in the next step. Namely, the gyroid structures mens of the trabecular structures and 12 specimens
were selected for its constant pore size throughout of the gyroid structures in total. Tests were executed
the model. So the next goal of this study was to according to international standard ISO 13314:2011
design 4 gyroid structures with different thickness of Mechanical testing of metals – Ductility testing – Com-
the walls and size of the pores and to test the struc- pression test for porous and cellular metals. The stan-
tures mechanically for verification of the numerical dard is intended for porous and foam metals with
models. porosity higher than 50 %.
Gyroid is a continuous and triply periodic cubic The compression tests were performed on the ma-
morphology with a constant curvature surface across chine MTS Alliance RT-30 and RT-50 (MTS, USA),
a range of volumetric fill fractions. It can be found in which the faculty of civil engineering CTU Prague
a variety of natural and synthetic systems [3]. possesses. The maximal load of 30 kN for the trabecu-
The most convenient approximation of the gyroid lar structures and 50 kN for the gyroid structures was

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P. Vakrčka, A. Jíra, P. Hájková Acta Polytechnica CTU Proceedings

a) b)

Figure 2. The stress-strain curve which is part of the standard for compression testing of porous and foam metals
(ISO 13314:2011) with specific characteristics, such as 1 – quasi-static gradient, 2 – elastic gradient, 3 – the first
maximum compressive strength (σf irst,max ), 4 – the compressive offset stress (σ0.2 ).

used. The tests were executed in the laboratory at static gradient was used to determinate the global
room temperature. The load direction was the same elastic modulus.
as the direction of additive manufacturing and thus Although the quasi-static gradient is not equal to
perpendicular to the printed layers. This was impor- the global elastic modulus according to the standard,
tant because of orthotropic behavior, which is caused the curve inclination in this point is the most suit-
by the technological procedure. The specimens were able for the global elastic modulus. At the begin-
loaded by remote displacement and the velocity of ning, the stress-strain curve does not correspond with
deformation was set to 1 mm/min which corresponds the real loading progress. Behind the point of in-
to the standard. flection, the inclination is significantly influenced by
Material characteristics of the trabecular and gyroid the plastic deformation.
structures were based on stress-strain curves which In more details, we can see the determination of
were obtained in the compression tests. The stress quasi-elastic gradient in Ffigure 2b. According to
was calculated from the following equation: the figure, it can be stated that the quasi-static gra-
dient is defined as the tangent line inclination of the
F stress-strain curve in the point of inflection. This
σ= , (3)
A point divides the curve into the convex and concave
where σ stands for stress, the A stands for the area parts. The curve concavity is due to plastic deforma-
of specimen cross-section and F stands for the force tion. Numerically, the point of inflection is specified as
which is applied perpendicularly to the area of speci- the point where the curve inclination starts lowering.
men cross-section. It can be calculated from the equation:
The strain (or relative deformation) of the specimen σi σi−5
was calculated according to the following equation: ∆E = − , (5)
i i−5
∆h where σi stands for the stress in the i-step of mea-
= , (4) surement, i is the strain in the i-step of measure-
h
ment, σi−5 stands for the i-5-step of measurement,
where  stands for strain, ∆h stands for measured de- and finally the i−5 is the strain in the i-5-step of
formation and h is the original height of the specimen. measurement. The inclination change was set after
As we mentioned earlier, the most important me- 5 steps to eliminate the error possibility caused by
chanical characteristic for our purpose was the global the measurement deviation of the applied force (F )
modulus of elasticity (E). Then we also determined and deformation (∆h).
the first maximum compressive strength (σf irst,max ) The next step in determination of the compressive
and compressive offset stress (σ0.2 ). The first maxi- offset stress is detection of the point which is the in-
mum compressive strength was set as the first local tersection of the quasi-static gradient and the x-axis
maximum of the stress-strain curve as can be seen ( = 0). Numerically, the point can be computed:
in Figure 2a. The compressive offset stress is defined
as the stress in material when the material reaches b
x0 = − , (6)
the plastic compressive strain equal to 0.2 % (Fig- a
ure 2b). The quasi-static gradient specifies this mo- where a,b stands for constants in linear equation
ment. Furthermore, the angle of inclination of quasi- of quasi-static gradient in the slope-intercept form.

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When the plastic deformation 0.2 % is added ( = 0.2), structure Diamond (1.00 mm) and Diamond (0.75 mm)
the intersection of the line with the stress-strain curve should have caused the difference of 18 % in the elastic
gives us the compressive offset stress. The process modulus. The same effect can be seen between struc-
can be seen again in Figure 2b. The slope-intercept tures Dode Thick (1.00 mm) and Diamond (0.75 mm).
equation of the new line is define as: It is probably caused by the fractions of struts which
are discussed at the end of the section.
y =a∗x+c
(7) The comparison of trabecular and gyroid structures
c = (x0 + 0.2) ∗ a , did not report the same phenomenon. Gyroid struc-
ture nb 1 with the lowest porosity (0.413) showed
where a still stands for constant of quasi-static gradi-
significantly lower global elastic modulus (3.048 GPa)
ent and also for the global elastic modulus of the rele-
than trabecular structure Rhombic dodecahedron
vant structure.
(3.822 GPa) with similar porosity (0.446). More gen-
Numerically, the intersection of the mentioned line
erally, the gyroid structure showed lower global elastic
with the stress-strain curve is the point where follow-
modulus than the gyroid structures with the same
ing condition is fulfilled:
porosity. It is again important to mention that elastic
|a ∗ i + c| = |σi | , (8) modulus of both types of structures (trabecular and
gyroid) was close to the elastic modulus of cancellous
where σi and i stands for stress and strain in the i- bone – 2.71–9.1 GPa. We can conclude that the dif-
step of measurement. ferences in elastic modulus are not a suitable property
In addition, the last but not less important mate- for comparison of reliability of the structures.
rial characteristic is the porosity of the structures. However, the first maximum compressive strength
Porosity was determined as: and the compressive offset stress showed huge dif-
m − (Vhom ∗ ρT i6Al4V ) ferences across the structures. It is also important
n=1− , (9) to mention that the compression tests of trabecular
A ∗ h ∗ ρT i6Al4V
structures were executed by using a machine with
where m is the weight of the specimen, Vhom stands a lower maximal force of 30 kN. This is the reason
for volume of the homogenous part of specimens, why the strength of Dode Thick (1.00 mm) and Rhom-
A and h are the dimensions of the porous structures bic dodecahedron (1.25 mm) were not able to be ob-
and ρT i6Al4V stands for a density of titanium pow- tained. Although some of the values are unknown, we
der which was used to manufacture the specimens. can state that, in general, the gyroid structures feature
The porosity was used for comparison between the tra- higher strength. This fact is crucial because strength
becular and gyroid structures. It is assumed that is related to the durability of the implant. For our pur-
the higher porosity would correspond to the lower poses, the global elastic modulus is mainly important
global modulus of elasticity. in relation to the stress shield effect. On the contrary,
The results of mechanical testing (the compres- the strength is related to the loading which implant
sion tests) for each structure are listed in Table 1.
can withstand before failure. In the Figure 3, we can
There are mean values for all sets of the trabecular
see the stress-strain curves of all the structures. For
and gyroid structures. Based on the experiment, we
clarity, we chose just one characteristic strain-stress
can definitely conclude that the global elastic mod-
curve for each type of the structures. Based on the fig-
ulus of all the structures is significantly lower than
ure, we can see differences in the strength of structures.
the elastic modulus of the structure material Ti6Al4V,
The trabecular structures have much lower strength
which is equal to 115 GPa according to the cata-
than the gyroid structures. What is more, there is
logue list. Furthermore, the global elastic modulus
a difference at the beginning of the curves. If we take
of all the structures is close to the elastic modulus
a closer look, we can see that the gyroid structures are
of human cancellous bone, which is approximately
2.71–9.10 GPa [7]. The crucial part of the design was linear from the beginning. On the contrary, the tra-
to adapt global elastic modulus of the structures to becular structures have a non-linear beginning. It
the modulus of bone as much as possible to avoid neg- is assumed that this behavior was due to fractures
ative consequences which are called stress shield effect. which were initiated during the fabrication of trabec-
Thus, the design of structures met the requirement. ular structures. It took some time until the material
The global elastic modulus of trabecular structures “settled”. The fractures and its origin were described
is dependent on porosity as we expected. The greatest in details in our last paper [8].
elastic modulus (3.822 GPa) was showed by the struc- In conclusion, we can state that the differences in
ture with the lowest porosity (0.446) which was Rhom- the elastic modulus of trabecular and gyroid structures
bic dodecahedron (1.25 mm). On the other hand, are negligible for our purpose. The main difference
the structure with the greatest porosity (0.653), which is that the gyroid structures have higher compres-
was Rhombic dodecahedron (1.00 mm), had the low- sive strength than the trabecular structures. Thus,
est elastic modulus (2.631 GPa). However, we were the gyroid structures withstand more loading before
surprised that a small difference in the porosity of failure.

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P. Vakrčka, A. Jíra, P. Hájková Acta Polytechnica CTU Proceedings

Pore size E σf irst,max σ0.2 n

Type of porous structure
[µm] [GPa] [MPa] [MPa] [-]
Gyroid structure nb 1 (1.40 mm) 400 3.048 228.501 166.990 0.413

Gyroid structure nb 2 (1.80 mm) 450 2.868 214.805 161.554 0.473

Gyroid structure nb 3 (2.40 mm) 750 2.837 190.670 157.764 0.496

Gyroid structure nb 4 (3.00 mm) 850 2.772 191.434 154.119 0.515

Diamond (0.75 mm) 350 2.884 88.649 86.647 0.540

Diamond (1.00 mm) 450 3.508 141.924 126.449 0.549

Dode Thick (1.00 mm) 500 3.713 N/A 142.218 0.547

Dode Thick (1.25 mm) 630 2.838 98.211 84.694 0.577

Rhombic dodecahedron (1.25 mm) 640 3.822 N/A N/A 0.446

Rhombic dodecahedron (1.50 mm) 800 2.631 90.201 78.388 0.653

Table 1. The pore size and mean values of the mechanical properties for each type of the trabecular or gyroid
structures.

Figure 3. The overview of the stress-strain curves of trabecular and gyroid structures. We can see quite similar
elastic modulus but significantly different compressive strength.

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4. Numerical modelling

During the compression tests and the microscopical

analysis, we evaluated the gyroid structures as more
reliable structures than the trabecular ones. It was
mainly because of the fractures of struts in the tra-
becular structures, and because of greater strength of
the gyroid structures. For these reasons, we focused
only on processing of numerical model of the gyroid
structures.
The main problem was the process of geometrical
modeling and meshing of the structures. It took lot
of time to successfully model an appropriate struc-
ture without singularities in any modelling software. Figure 4. The deformation of the gyroid structure.
The most suitable way to achieve the structure with- The unit of deformation is meter.
out problems was directly in Netfabb software by
Autodesk company. The huge constrain was the limit
from the experiment data:
of ANSYS academic license. After taking into account
the constrain, only element size of gyroid structures Fexperimental gyroid ∗ Amodel gyroid
Fmodel gyroid =
was modeled to represent the whole structure. Ac- Aexperimental gyroid
,
cording to gyroid structure number 1, the dimension Fexperimental gyroid ∗ 3 ∗ 3
of cutting box was set to 3 mm. All models were Fmodel gyroid =
14 ∗ 14
meshed successfully by the automatic meshing method. (10)
We had to lower the accuracy of gyroid plotting for
where Fmodel gyroid stands for force reaction caused
structures number 3 and 4 because of the academic
by remote displacement,
license constrain. Loading program was set accord- Fexperimental gyroid stands for value of force obtained
ing to ISO 13314:2011 Mechanical testing of metals – from the experiment which caused stress equal to
Ductility testing – Compression test for porous and 150 MPa, Amodel gyroid stands for contact loading
cellular metals which specify a test method for com- area of the gyroid which underwent the experimental
pressive properties of porous and cellular metals with testing, Amodel gyroid stands for contact loading area
a porosity of 50 % or more. Therefore, all the spec- of gyroid model. The calculated force had to corre-
imens had to be loaded by the remote displacement spond with the force probe on the top of the loaded
1 mm/min. In general, the rigid body has 6 degrees model.
of freedom which we need to constrain. In consonance The next step was to determine the final deforma-
with the experiment, we fixed all the degrees on one tion of model. For our purposes, a simplification that
side of the gyroid structure by fixed support. On strain is equal throughout the structure had to be
the other side, we set the loading by remote displace- made. Afterward, we could compute the required
ment. The remote displacement loading had rigid deformation of our model:
behaviour and ramped rotation around all axes in
order to represent the experiment as much as possible. uexperimental gyroid ∗ hmodel gyroid
umodel gyroid =
We assumed just elastic part of the stress-strain curve hexperimental gyroid
because of implant safety reasons. We do not accept uexperimental gyroid ∗3
the state when there is plastic deformation, which can umodel gyroid = .
14
lead to the loss of implant. (11)
During observation of stress-strain curves of the gy- We can see the deformation of gyroid structure in
roid structures, we noticed that 150 MPa is the point figure 4. In the table 2 we can find the results of curve-
when all the gyroid structures start the process of fitting approximations. We can see that the elastic
hardening. Naturally, this value of stress is achieved modulus of material Ti6Al4V is significantly lower
under different forces based on the gyroid morphology than value according to the material list which is
and different strain. 115 GPa. It is assumed that the reason for such a high
difference is due to the problematic loading of samples.
Now, we would like to discuss the computation of The producer of gyroid samples placed a selvage on
model input for one of the gyroid structures in details. the edge of platforms. It caused that the loading
First of all, we had to state the force reaction which was distributed mainly through outer parts of gyroid
is caused by remote displacement. We obtained the structures, whereas the loading of the numerical model
value of force which caused stress equal to 150 MPa was placed on the complete platform.

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P. Vakrčka, A. Jíra, P. Hájková Acta Polytechnica CTU Proceedings

Force probe Strain of model Elastic modulus of material

Type of gyroid structure
[N] [%] [GPa]
Gyroid structure nb 1 1350 5.10 14.57
Gyroid structure nb 2 1350 5.80 12.98
Gyroid structure nb 3 1350 6.10 12.20
Gyroid structure nb 4 1350 6.25 11.11

Table 2. Mean values of the mechanical properties for each of the designed gyroid structures.

5. Conclusions [3] J. A. Dolan, M. Saba, R. Dehmel, et al. Gyroid

optical metamaterials. ACS Photonics 3(10):1888–1896,
The goal of the presented study was to design an effec- 2016-09-22. doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.6b00400.
tive porous structure which can be used for different
types of implants on the interface between bone and [4] J. A. Dolan, B. D. Wilts, S. Vignolini, et al. Optical
properties of gyroid structured materials. Advanced
artificial material of implant. It can substitute con-
Optical Materials 3(1):12–32, 2015.
temporary compact implants with necessary surface doi:10.1002/adom.201400333.
modification, and subsequently help to avoid the stress
shielding effect and maximize the bone ingrowth. [5] N. Taniguchi, S. Fujibayashi, M. Takemoto, et al.
Effect of pore size on bone ingrowth into porous
In order to achieve the goal of the study, the dif- titanium implants fabricated by additive manufacturing.
ferent types of trabecular and gyroid structures were Materials Science and Engineering: C 59:690–701, 2016.
designed. Both types of the structures were tested doi:10.1016/j.msec.2015.10.069.
macromechanically and their quality was checked mi-
[6] S. Hulbert, F. Young, R. Mathews, et al. Potential of
croscopically. All the structures showed global elastic ceramic materials as permanently implantable skeletal
modulus close to a cancellous bone. On the other hand, prostheses. Journal of biomedical materials research
the gyroid structures had greater strength. The gy- 4(3):433–456, 1970.
roid structures, which also seemed to be more reliable
[7] D. Wu, P. Isaksson, S. J. Ferguson, C. Persson.
based on microscopical analysis, were chosen for de- Young’s modulus of trabecular bone at the tissue level.
signing of the numerical model in the FEM software Acta Biomaterialia 78:1–12, 2018.
ANSYS. The results of mechanical testing were also doi:10.1016/j.actbio.2018.08.001.
used for the verification of numerical model.
[8] A. Jíra, P. Hájková. Trabecular structures as efficient
All in all, the gyroid structures seem to be an ap- surface of dental implants 2019.
propriate structure for external layer of implants. As
we mentioned earlier, it can speed up the production
of implants, which are composed of compact body
and porous external layer and do not need any surface
modifications. Because time and money are always
tightly linked, it can also make the implants cheaper.
Hopefully in the future implants, such as dental, will
become a standard and not a nightmare.

Acknowledgements
The financial support provided by the Technology Agency
of the Czech Republic (TAČR), project n. TJ01000328, is
gratefully acknowledged.
The financial support by the Faculty of Civil Engineer-
ing, Czech Technical University in Prague (SGS project No.
SGS17/168/OHK1/3T/11) is gratefully acknowledged.

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