Strength increase during ceramic biomaterial-induced bone regeneration: a micromechanical study

Bone tissue engineering materials must blend in the targeted physiological environment, in terms of both the materials' biocompatibility and mechanical properties. As for the latter, a well-adjusted stiffness ensures that the biomaterial's deformation behavior fits well to the deformation behavior of the surrounding biological tissue, whereas an appropriate strength provides sufficient load-carrying capacity of the biomaterial. Here, a mathematical modeling approach for estimating the macroscopic load that initiates failure of a hierarchically organized, granular, hydroxyapatite-based biomaterial is presented. For this purpose, a micromechanics model is developed for downscaling macroscopically prescribed stress (or strain) states to the level of the needle-shaped hydroxyapatite crystals. Presuming that the biomaterial fails due to the quasi-brittle failure of the most unfavorably stressed hydroxyapatite needle, the downscaled stress tensors are fed into a suitable, Mohr-Coulomb-type failure criterion, based on which the macroscopic failure load is deduced. The change of the biomaterial's composition in response to placing it in physiological solution, caused by growth of new bone tissue on the granules's surfaces, on the one hand, and by resorption of the hydroxyapatite crystals, on the other hand, is taken into account by means of suitable evolution laws. Numerical studies show how the macroscopic load-carrying capacity of the biomaterial is influenced by its design parameters. The presented modeling approach could prove beneficial for the design process of the studied biomaterials (as well as similarly composed biomaterials), particularly in terms of optimizing its mechanical performance.