RESEARCH ARTICLE

Fabrication and in vivo evaluation of Ti6Al4V implants with controlled porous structure and complex shape

  • Xiang LI ,
  • Yun LUO ,
  • Chengtao WANG ,
  • Wenguang ZHANG ,
  • Yuanchao LI
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  • School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

Received date: 15 Oct 2011

Accepted date: 12 Nov 2011

Published date: 05 Mar 2012

Copyright

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Abstract

Electron beam melting process was used to fabricate porous Ti6Al4V implants. The porous structure and surface topography of the implants were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and digital microscopy (DM). The results showed that the pore size was around 600 and the porosity approximated to 57%. There was about±50 μm of undulation on implants surfaces. Standard implants and a custom implant coupled with porous sections were designed and fabricated to validate the versatility of the electron beam melting (EBM) technique. After coated with bone-like apatite, samples with fully porous structures were implanted into cranial defects in rabbits to investigate the in vivo performance. The animals were sacrificed at 8 and 12 weeks after implantation. Bone ingrowth into porous structure was examined by histological analysis. The histological sections indicated that a large amount of new bone formation was observed in porous structure. The newly formed bone grew from the calvarial margins toward the center of the bone defect and was in close contact with implant surfaces. The results of the study showed that the EBM produced Ti6Al4V implants with well-controlled porous structure, rough surface topography and bone-like apatite layer are beneficial for bone ingrowth and apposition.

Cite this article

Xiang LI , Yun LUO , Chengtao WANG , Wenguang ZHANG , Yuanchao LI . Fabrication and in vivo evaluation of Ti6Al4V implants with controlled porous structure and complex shape[J]. Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering, 2012 , 7(1) : 66 -71 . DOI: 10.1007/s11465-012-0302-y

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