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Updated: May 6, 2026

Design of a Biaxial Mechanical Loading Bioreactor for Tissue Engineering
Published on: April 25, 2013
Cyclic loading of growing tissue in a bioreactor: mathematical model and asymptotic analysis
1Department of Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA.
Abstract:
A simplified 2D mathematical model for tissue growth within a cyclically-loaded tissue engineering scaffold is presented and analyzed. Such cyclic loading has the potential to improve yield and functionality of tissue such as bone and cartilage when grown on a scaffold within a perfusion bioreactor. The cyclic compression affects the flow of the perfused nutrient, leading to flow properties that are inherently unsteady, though periodic, on a timescale short compared with that of tissue proliferation. A two-timescale analysis based on these well-separated timescales is exploited to derive a closed model for the tissue growth on the long timescale of proliferation. Some sample numerical results are given for the final model, and discussed.
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