Influence of strut-size and cell-size variations on porous Ti6Al4V structures for load-bearing implants

Mechanical properties of porous metal coatings in load-bearing implants play a critical role in determining the in vivo lifetime. However, there is a knowledge gap in measuring the shear strength of porous metal coatings at the porous-dense interface. This study evaluated pore morphology dependence and strut-size on compression, shear deformation, and in vitro response of additively manufactured porous Ti6Al4V structures. Selective laser melting (SLM)-based additive manufacturing (AM) technique was used to process two types of structures with honeycomb cell design-one with constant cell-size of ∼470 μm with mean strut-size varying from 92 to 134 μm, and denoted as strut-size variation (SSV); and the other with a constant strut-size of ∼135 μm with mean cell-size varying from 580 to 740 μm, denoted as cell-size variation (CSV). It was observed that under compressive loading, changes in elastic modulus were more sensitive to variations in strut-size over cell-size. Under shear loading at the porous-dense interface, strength enhancement and material hardening were observed in both SSV and CSV samples due to pore-collapsing. Our results show that for hexagonal cell designs, shear behavior is more sensitive to variations in cell-size over strut-size, although elastic modulus is more sensitive to changes in strut-size for porous metallic structures. From in vitro hFOB analysis, it was observed that pore size of 670 μm demonstrated the highest osteoblast cell viability among porous structures with evidence of pore-bridging by cells. P. aeruginosa bacterial culture showed that bacterial cell viability was higher for porous structures than dense Ti, with evidence of pore-bridging by bacterial cells.