Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547

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Acta Biomaterialia
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/actabiomat

Inuence of cell shape on mechanical properties of Ti6Al4V meshes

fabricated by electron beam melting method
S.J. Li a, Q.S. Xu a, Z. Wang a, W.T. Hou a, Y.L. Hao a,, R. Yang a, L.E. Murr b
a
Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 72 Wenhua Road, Shenyang 110016, Peoples Republic of China
b
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, The University of Texas at EI Paso, EI Paso, TX 79968, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Ti6Al4V reticulated meshes with different elements (cubic, G7 and rhombic dodecahedron) in Materi-
Received 13 February 2014 alise software were fabricated by additive manufacturing using the electron beam melting (EBM)
Received in revised form 13 May 2014 method, and the effects of cell shape on the mechanical properties of these samples were studied. The
Accepted 9 June 2014
results showed that these cellular structures with porosities of 8858% had compressive strength and
Available online 24 June 2014
elastic modulus in the range 10300 MPa and 0.515 GPa, respectively. The compressive strength and
deformation behavior of these meshes were determined by the coupling of the buckling and bending
Keywords:
deformation of struts. Meshes that were dominated by buckling deformation showed relatively high col-
Electron beam melting
Titanium alloys
lapse strength and were prone to exhibit brittle characteristics in their stressstrain curves. For meshes
Reticulated mesh dominated by bending deformation, the elastic deformation corresponded well to the GibsonAshby
Compressive deformation behavior model. By enhancing the effect of bending deformation, the stressstrain curve characteristics can change
Cell shape effect from brittle to ductile (the smooth plateau area). Therefore, Ti6Al4V cellular solids with high strength,
low modulus and desirable deformation behavior could be fabricated through the cell shape design using
the EBM technique.
2014 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Porous titanium and its alloys, which possess low elastic mod-
ulus matching to bone tissues and are capable of providing space
for in-growth of bony tissue to achieve better xation, have been
considered as promising replacements for dense implants [1].
Recently, additive manufacturing (AM) using the electron beam
melting (EBM) method has been applied successfully to fabricating
titanium cellular meshes and foams [24]. In comparison with
previous methods, it offers the advantages of accurate control of
internal pore architectures and complex cell shapes, thus receiving
extensive attention.
Until now, most of the reported EBM titanium-based open cel-
lular structures and foams have been fabricated using Ti6Al4V
powders. Systematic and various geometrical arrays of biocompat-
ible reticulated meshes and foams with interconnected porous
structures have been manufactured with complex monolithic
structures [57]. Previous studies have found the following limits:
one is their brittle deformation characteristics if they have an
elastic modulus close to that of human bone tissues [3,810];
and another is their low fatigue endurance ratios in the range
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 24 83978841; fax: +86 24 23972021.
E-mail address: ylhao@imr.ac.cn (Y.L. Hao).
0.10.2, which are much lower than that of bulk alloy (0.6)
[11]. Since the above limits can be improved by optimizing cell
geometry such as shape and size [12], many studies have been per-
formed. For examples, Nieh et al. [13] investigated open-cell Al
foams fabricated by the directional solidication technique, and
their results showed that both elastic modulus and yield stress
were higher along the longitudinal direction than along the trans-
verse direction, but the cell size had a negligible effect. Li et al.
[14,15] conducted nite element (FE) simulations, and their results
indicated that the elastic modulus increased as cell shape became
irregular, but decreased with increase in variation of cell wall
thickness. Luxner et al. [16] investigated the spatial deformation
distribution of uniform and disordered cellular structures by the
FE method and concluded that the catastrophic failure of highly
porous biological materials would be retarded by a certain degree
of disorder. Yamada et al. [17] investigated the mechanical proper-
ties of three types of open-cell Mg alloys and explained their
results from the viewpoint of bending, buckling and yielding of
the struts. Vesenjak et al. [18] reported that the circular cells
favored energy absorption. Cote et al. [19] found the sandwich
panels containing corrugated and diamond lattice cores were
weaker than these containing pyramidal and square-honeycomb
cores. Fazekas et al. [20] and An et al. [21] studied the effects of cell
shape on the elastic modulus and mechanical behavior of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2014.06.010
1742-7061/ 2014 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
4538 S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547
two-dimensional and three-dimensional cellular solids and also
found strong dependence on cell geometry. These theoretical and
experimental results provide helpful insight into the mechanical
properties and deformation behavior of reticulated meshes.
In this study, three types of reticulated meshes with cubic, G7
and rhombic dodecahedron cell shapes were fabricated by the
EBM method using Ti6Al4V (ELI) alloy powders. The compres-
sion tests demonstrate that the meshes prone to buckling deforma-
tion tend to have high strength and be brittle, while these prone to
bending deformation exhibit a contrasting tendency. These results
suggest that cell structure design is an effective way to balance the
strength, elastic modulus and deformation behavior of the reticu-
late meshes.
2. Experimental
Reticulated meshes of Ti6Al4V alloy with extra low intersti-
tials (ELI) were fabricated by an EBM system (Arcam A1, Arcam,
Sweden). These monolithic structures were built layer-by-layer
using precursor, medical-graded Ti6Al4V (ELI) powders, with
an average particle diameter of 50 lm. Each powder layer was
created by raking powder gravity fed from two cassettes, and then
heated to 730 C by multiple pre-heat scans, followed by melting
of the selected areas controlled by a CAD program. In the study,
CAD programs were used to design meshes with unit cells of cubic,
G7 (Materialise/Magics cell unit) and rhombic dodecahedron, as
shown in Fig. 1ac, respectively. To obtain different densities
(0.52.0 g cm3), porosities (5888%) and cell sizes (0.53.0 mm),
the built units are dimensionally scaled under the condition of
constant strut thickness 0.5 mm. The above cell parameters were
selected on the basis of previous studies [2225]. First, higher
porosity favors better bone ingrowth [22]. Second, a cell size
(a) (b)
(d) (e)
Fig. 1. (ac) Cubic, G7 and rhombic dodecahedron element in the Materialise software and (df) the corresponding Ti6Al4V prototype blocks fabricated by the EBM
method.
<1 mm exhibits better biocompatibility than larger cells
[2325]. Lastly, cells >1 mm can be used in scaffolds of bioactive
coatings to overcome the bio-inert nature of titanium alloys [25].
The apparent density of the open cellular structure was
estimated from its mass and apparent volume. The porosity P
was calculated as
P 1  q=q0  100% 1
where q and q0 are the densities of cellular and bulk alloys,
respectively.
The microstructures of these meshes were characterized by
optical microscopy (OM) and scanning electron microscopy
(SEM). The specimens for OM observation were mounted, mechan-
ically polished and etched in a solution consisting of 8 vol.% HF, 15
vol.% HNO3 and 77 vol.% H2O. The cell structure and size were
studied by SEM using a Hitachi S-3400N microscope primarily
operated at 20 kV. The Youngs moduli of these cellular specimens
of 30  30  60 mm were measured by means of a damping ana-
lyzer (RFDAHTVP1750-C), which measures the resonant frequency
of a specimen arising from a mechanically induced vibration.
Youngs modulus (E) is generally given by [26]
  
2 3
E 0:9465 mf r =w l =t3 T 2
where fr is the measured resonant frequency, m, w, l and t are the
mass, width, length and thickness of the specimen, respectively,
and T is a factor related to l, t and the Poissons ratio of the material.
Specimens for the compression test were prepared with dimensions
20  20  30 mm to avoid free-surface effects. Static compression
tests were carried out using an Instron 5582 instrument at room
temperature under a strain rate of 103 s1. To measure the static
modulus, the calibrated strain extensometer was used to record
(c)
(f)
 S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547
loading
sample
Fig. 2. Device designed for in situ SEM observation of the meshes in compression.
compression strains during loading and unloading. The averaged
results of three samples, including the statistical errors measured
from the initial unloading curves, were reported.
In order to obtain detailed information on specimen crushing,
the compression tests were monitored and recorded in a digital
video. Some small mesh columns were compressed using a
designed instrument shown in Fig. 2, and their deformation behav-
iors were observed in situ by SEM to obtain the strut deformation
in detail.
3. Results
3.1. Microstructure and phase constitution
Macroscopic images of reticulated meshes with three types of
cell shapes (cubic, G7 and rhombic dodecahedron) (Fig. 1ac) are
(a)
500m
(c)
500m
Fig. 3. SEM images of the meshes with (a) cubic, (b) G7 and (c) rhombic dodecahedron cells and (d) typical OM image of mesh strut.
4539
shown correspondingly in Fig. 1df. SEM observations found a
strut thickness of all meshes 700 lm, which is larger by
200 lm than the designed thickness (Fig. 3). Similarly to the pre-
vious study, the strut surfaces are relatively rough owing to partial
melting of the powder particles and sintering to the surface
(Fig. 3ac) [27], and these mesh struts have an acicular microstruc-
ture, which consists mainly of a0 martensites and a small amount
of b phase (Fig. 3d) as a result of rapid cooling of the thin isolated
struts [58]. Since the a0 martensites are hard and brittle compared
with the a phase, Ti6Al4V alloy fabricated by the EBM method
tends to be brittle [8]. Such brittle characteristics can be modied
in two ways: one is by phase transformation from the a0 martens-
ites to the a phase by heat treatment or hot isostatic pressing, and
another is cellular structure design to control the deformation
behavior. This study focuses on the latter, and the results will show
that the stressstrain curves of cellular structure of G7 exhibit a
ductile character in compression.
3.2. Youngs modulus
Dynamic Youngs moduli of these meshes were measured by a
damping analyzer, and the results are presented in Fig. 4a. It is
clear that modulus increases linearly with the increase in density
for three types of meshes in the range 0.515 GPa, which are
comparable with those of trabecular (0.053 GPa) and cortical
bone tissue (1025 GPa) [28,29]. Fig. 4a also shows that, under
the condition of identical density, the cubic mesh possesses the
highest modulus, while the G7 mesh has the lowest.
Static Youngs moduli of these rhombic dodecahedron meshes
were measured by the compressive method. They were calculated
from the initial unloading part of the stressstrain curves shown
in Fig. 5 [30], and were slightly lower than the corresponding
dynamical moduli (Fig. 4a). This tendency is in agreement with bulk
(b)
500m
(d)
50m
4540
102
Young's modulus, GPa Cubic
G7
rhombic dodecahedron
rhombic dodecahedron
101
100
10-1
0.0 0.5 1.0
Density, g/cm3
Compressive strength, MPa
3 Strain,%
10
Cubic
G7
rhombic dodecahedron
2 dron structure.
10
1 a digital video, and the results demonstrate that the three types of
10
0 showed angles different from the loading direction. The bands
10
0.4 0.8 1.2
Density, g/cm3
Compressive strength, MPa
Cubic
G7
rhombic dodecahedron
102
101
0.1 1 10
Young's modulus, GPa
Fig. 4. Mechanical properties of the meshes with different cell shapes: (a) dynamic
Youngs modulus (open symbols) and static Youngs modulus (solid symbols); (b)
compression strength; (c) the relation between dynamic modulus and compression
strength.
materials [31]. Therefore, the non-destructive physical method can
also be applied to cellular solids to obtain more accurate data.
3.3. Compressive properties
3.3.1. Deformation
Nominal compressive stressstrain curves of the meshes stud-
ied are shown in Fig. 6. These stressstrain curves have three
regions: a region of elastic deformation up to the rst peak value,
followed by a plateau region and then a densication region char-
acterized by a rapid increase in stress. As for the G7 cell, the abrupt
drop in stress (Fig. 6b) after densication is caused by the mesh
crushing. Since previous studies have found that the signicant
stress uctuation in the plateau region is a typical characteristic
of brittle foams [12], it is concluded that the cubic and rhombic
dodecahedron meshes exhibit brittle deformation behavior
(Fig. 6a, c). However, the stressstrain curves of meshes with G7
structure have a smooth plateau region (Fig. 6b), similar to those
from ductile metallic foams, as previously reported. These results
indicate that the brittle deformation of cellular solids fabricated
by the EBM method can be improved through optimization of cel-
lular structures.
S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547
35
0.62 g/cm3
(a)
30 0.73 g/cm3
0.91 g/cm3
25
Stress, MPa
20
15
10
5
1.5 2.0
0
0 2 4 6 8
(b) Fig. 5. Loading and unloading stressstrain curves recorded by the strain exten-
someter to estimate the static modulus of three meshes with rhombic dodecahe-
Compression responses of the meshes studied were recorded in
meshes exhibited different failure behaviors (Fig. 7). Although they
all fractured through the formation of crush bands, these bands
1.6 2.0 are almost perpendicular to the loading direction for the cubic
meshes (Fig. 7a), whereas they retain a nearly constant value
45 for G7 and rhombic dodecahedron structures (Fig. 7b, c).
Increasing the applied strains caused these bands to expand grad-
(c) ually throughout the whole specimen and nally led to collapse of
the meshes.
In situ SEM observations of the strut deformation are shown in
Fig. 8. It is clear that the strut deformed mainly through buckling
for the cubic structure and bending for G7 and rhombic dodecahe-
dron structures. For all three structures, fracture occurred mostly
near the connect node.
3.3.2. Compressive strength
Variations in compressive strength with density of three types
of meshes are plotted in Fig. 4b, showing the strength ranges in
10 and 300 MPa. Similarly to the dynamical Youngs modulus pre-
sented in Fig. 4a, the strength also exhibits a linear relation with
the density for the meshes with same cell shape. Furthermore,
the cubic structure also possesses the highest strength, while G7
has the lowest, as they have same density. As a result, the dynamic
Youngs modulus and the compressive strength follow a linear
relation for the three types of meshes studied on a loglog basis
(Fig. 4c).
It should be noted that fatigue strength is crucial for biomedical
implants because of their long-term application in the human
body. Previous investigations of Ti6Al4V meshes with rhombic
dodecahedron structure found that their fatigue endurance ratios
of fatigue strength and compressive strength are in the range of
0.1 and 0.2 [11]. These values are much lower than the bulk alloy,
with the ratio of fatigue strength and yield strength being 0.6
[11]. Recent studies suggest that the fatigue endurance can be
improved by cell shape design and annealing treatment, as evi-
denced by higher ratio of 0.2 and 0.6 for G7 and cubic meshes,
respectively. These primary results are under analysis to establish
the relation.
4. Discussion
4.1. Effect of cell shape on compressive deformation behavior
As for the cellular solids, the investigations of mechanical
responses have been focused theoretically and experimentally on
 S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547 4541

300 250
1.6g/cm3 (b)
0.9g/cm3
(a) 1.8g/cm3
1.6g/cm3
0.7g/cm3
200
1.0g/cm3

Stress, MPa
Stress, MPa
200 0.6g/cm3 0.8g/cm3
0.5g/cm3 150

100
100
50

0 0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Strain, mm/mm Strain,mm/mm
140
0.62g/cm3 (c)
120 0.73g/cm3
0.91g/cm3
100
Stress, MPa

1.18g/cm3
80 1.68g/cm3

60
40
20
0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Strain, mm/mm
Fig. 6. Nominal compressive stressstrain curves of the meshes with (a) cubic, (b) G7 and (c) rhombic dodecahedron structures.

the deformation behavior of cell wall/strut (referred to as cell wall
and strut for cellular foam and mesh, respectively, in general). The
early studies failed to establish accurate relations because the
dominated deformation mechanisms of the cell walls had not been
revealed [3234]. Later investigations have shown that, for the cel-
lular solids, their elastic moduli are related primarily to bending
deformation of cell walls, elastic collapse is caused by elastic buck-
ling, and plastic collapse is initiated by plastic hinges [3538].
Based on these deformation modes, a simple model was estab-
lished to estimate accurately mechanical properties such as elastic
modulus and collapse strength using the properties of cell wall and
the cell geometry as input [37,38]. The following investigations on
the mechanical properties of cellular solids are based mainly on
this model.
The videos and in situ observations presented in Section 3.3
show that the cell struts are deformed mainly by buckling and/or
bending in compression. Thus, different mechanical behavior of
the meshes should be related to the interaction of two deformation
mechanisms. To characterize their contributions, the load P applied
to a strut in Fig. 9 was divided into two components P1 and P2 along
the bending and buckling deformation directions, respectively. It is
clear that the P2 component decreases in the order cubic, rhombic
dodecahedron and G7, whereas P1 follows the reverse order.
The above variation tendencies of P1 and P2 components with
cell shapes are in agreement with those of the strength, modulus
and deformation behavior described in Sections 3.2 and 3.3. That
is, under identical density, higher P1 (lower P2) correspond to lower
strength and modulus, and their stressstrain curves are easily
shown to have a ductile character. For example, Fig. 4 shows that
strength and modulus decrease in turn for the cubic, rhombic
dodecahedron and G7 cells, while their deformation behavior
changes from brittle to ductile characteristics. The above empirical
relation can be explained by the simple model presented in Fig. 9.
As for the elastic modulus E of a mesh, the analyses in the Appen-
dix (Eq. (A19)) shows that it is proportional to sin a= cos2 a, in
which a is the angle between P1 and P. As a result, the larger a leads
to a higher modulus. Therefore the meshes have higher and lower E
if their structures tend to buckling (larger P2) and bending (larger
P1), respectively. The analysis of strength also has a similar
tendency.
It should be noted that, for stochastic foams of ductile materials
such as polymer and aluminum foams, previous studies have
shown their deformations dominated mainly by the bending
mechanism and neglected generally for the buckling mechanism.
The study of reticulate meshes of Ti6Al4V alloy, however, found
that their deformations were controlled by both mechanisms
(Fig. 9). Since the increase in bending contribution tends to
ductility of the meshes (Fig. 6), the following experiments were
conducted to give a solid conrmation: for the rhombic dodecahe-
dron meshes presented in Fig. 10, the a angles were designed as 36,
30 and 23, corresponding to the increase in bending component
P1. The compression tests (Fig. 10) found that the stress plateau
gradually became smooth with the decrease in the angle, while
the strength and modulus decreased correspondingly. The above
analyses suggest that the brittle deformation behavior of the
EBM meshes studied can be avoided by promoting the bending
deformation mechanism through structure design.
4.2. Comparison with the classical model
Over several decades, many models have been established to
relate the porous structure and mechanical properties. The most
successful one is the GibsonAshby model [12]. According to the
model, the relative modulus (E/Es), the relative collapse strength
(rp/rs), the relative buckling strength (rp/Es) and the relative den-
sity (q/qs) of cellular materials can be described as
E=Es q=qs 2 3
rp =rs Cq=qs 1:5 4
rp =Es C 0 q=qs 2 5
4542 S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547

(a)

=0% =1% =2% =4%

(b)

(e) (f)

=0% =2% =7% =11%

(c)

=0% =2% =9% =15%

Fig. 7. Images of the meshes with (a) cubic, (b) G7 and (c) rhombic dodecahedron cells at different strains during the compression, recorded in video.
 2
where the subscript s denotes the fully dense material so as to dis- E q
tinguish the cellular material, C and C0 are constant values related to C3 8
Es qs
the material of the cell struts. These equations have been widely
 1:5
applied to metallic foams, including Al and its alloys, Mg alloys rp q
and Zn alloys [12]. However, for the regular cellular structure, there C4 9
rs qs
is lack of experimental data to obtain the exponential factors.
According to the deformation analysis shown in the Appendix, For the rhombic dodecahedron cell
the GibsonAshby models regarding the cell shape effect are  2
E q
shown as follows: C5 10
Es qs
For the cubic cell
 1:5
E q rp q
C1 6 C6 11
Es qs rs qs
The above theoretical analysis shows that, except for the cubic
 2
rp q meshes dominated by the buckling deformation, the exponential
C2 7 factors n are consistent with the GibsonAshby model for the G7
Es qs
and rhombic dodecahedron cells dominated by the bending
For the G7 cell deformation.
 S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547 4543

(a)
P P P
A A A

B B B
500m

=0% =0.5% =1.5%

(b)

P P P

D D D
C C C
500m

=0% =1% =2%

Fig. 8. In situ SEM observations of meshes with (a) cubic and (b) G7 cells at different strains during compression. Lines AB and CD in cubic and G7 cells schematically
indicate the buckling and bending deformation of struts, respectively.

(a) (b) (c) F

A
D
E
C

P (P2)
A D F
P2 P2

P1 P1
P P
B C E

Fig. 9. Schematic to depict the buckling and bending vectors of the load applied on (a) cubic, (b) G7 and (c) rhombic dodecahedron cell struts.

In this study, the reticulated meshes with different cell shapes
were manufactured by the AM-EBM method. The relative modulus,
strength and density of these meshes are measured and plotted in
Fig. 11. For the relative modulus and density, the experimental
exponent n is 2.4, 2.0 and 2.2 for cubic, G7 and rhombic dodecahe-
dron structures, respectively (Fig. 11a). These results indicate that
the factors for G7 and rhombic dodecahedron meshes dominated
by the bending deformation match well with the theoretical value
of the model in the Appendix. As for the cubic meshes dominated
by the buckling deformation, however, the experimental factor
(2.4) is much higher than the theoretical one (1). The inconsis-
tency would be caused by the unreasonable assumption that the
struts are uniform. Actually, they are very irregular (Fig. 8), owing
to the limitation of the EBM method. Since the deformation of such
irregular struts can be analyzed with aid of the FE method [39], the
consistency of theoretical and experimental n exponent can be
achieved.
The relationship between the relative strength and density is
also linear, with the exponential factor n0 of 1.7, 1.9 and 2.2 for
cubic, G7 and rhombic dodecahedron meshes, respectively
(Fig. 11b, c), which shows the discrepancy with the ideal value of
the GibsonAshby model in the Appendix. This discrepancy can
be explained as follows. One is the microstructure, irregular
surfaces of the struts, which is crucially important to determine
the plastic strength. The other is the cell shape. For the deforma-
tion of G7 and rhombic dodecahedron meshes in the Appendix,
only the bending component was considered. In order to obtain
an accurate theoretical estimate of the strength of the cellular
4544 S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547

16 cubic (a)
b (a) G7
c 0.1 rhombic dodecahedron
12 d

E/Es
Stress,MPa

8 0.01

4
1E-3
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
/s
0
0 30 60 90 1
Strain,% (b) G7
rhombic dodecahedron
(b) F (c) F
(d)
F

p/s
E E E 0.1

F F F 0.01
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
E E E /s
10
Cubic (c)
F F
P2 P2 F
P2
p/Es
P1 P1 1
P P1
P P
E E E

Fig. 10. (a) Stressstrain curves of the reticulated meshes with different rhombic
dodecahedron unit cells; (b) unit cell designed by the Materialise software; (c) and 0.1
(d) unit cells designed to increase the bending component of the load applied on the 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
struts. /s

Fig. 11. Plots of (a) the relative modulus (E/Es), (b) the relative strength (rp/rs) and
(c) (rp/Es) vs. relative density (q/qs) for the Ti6Al4V meshes studied.
structure, the coupling effect of the bending and buckling compo-
nent should be taken into account in the theoretical analysis, espe-
and desirable deformation behavior can be fabricated by the
cially for the structures with a high buckling component.
EBM technique.

5. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
In this study, the reticulated meshes of Ti6Al4V alloys with
cubic, G7 and rhombic dodecahedron cells were fabricated by This work was partially supported by MOST grants
AM using the EBM method. The effects of the cell shape on the 2012CB933902, 2012CB619103 and 2012CB933901, and NSFC
compressive deformation behavior were investigated. The results grants 51271182 and 51271180.
are summarized as follows.
Appendix A. Mechanistic model of the studied mesh arrays
1. The compressive deformation behavior and strength of the
studied meshes are determined by the coupled mechanisms
Cubic-cell mesh
of the buckling and bending.
2. Meshes dominated by the buckling mechanism possess a
A representative cubic unit cell and schematic drawing for load-
high collapse strength and exhibit brittle characteristics in
ing analysis are shown in Fig. 1Aa. The compressive load P applied
the stressstrain curves.
on the strut can be expressed as
3. Meshes dominated by the bending mechanism obey the the-
oretical GibsonAshby model. By enhancing the bending mech- rl2
P A1
anism through the cellular structure design, the stressstrain 4
curve exhibits ductile characteristic, whereas the strength where r is the stress applied on the meshes, and l is the length of
decreases correspondingly. the strut. Assuming the strut has a uniform cross section, its linear
4. Youngs modulus and the compressive strength of these elastic deformation Dl is [40]
meshes are in the range 0.515 GPa and 10300 MPa, respec- 3
tively. By optimizing the buckling and bending deformation, Pl rl
Dl A2
Ti6Al4V cellular solids with high strength, low modulus Es A 4Es t 2
 S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547 4545

Fig. 1A. Deformation analysis of the cubic and G7 meshes studied.

where Es is Youngs modulus of the materials, A is the cross-section Pcr C 2 Es I

rP / 2
4
A7
area of the strut, and t is the strut thickness. The overall strain e is l l
proportional to Dl/l Youngs modulus is calculated as
From which
r 4rEs t2 l Es t2  2
E / C1 2 A3 rP q
e rl 3
l C2 A8
Es qs
For the cubic unit cell

q t2 G7-cell meshes
/ A4
qs l2
Then, Eq. (A3) becomes A representative G7 unit cell and the loading analysis are shown
in Fig. 1Ab Based on the SEM observation, the strut was dominated
E q by the bending mechanism. The deformation coordination equa-
C1 A5
Es qs tions are
The collapse stress rp, can be obtained by the same method. d11 X 1 d12 X 2 D1P 0 A9
SEM observation indicates that buckling is the major deformation
mode for the struts of cubic-cell meshes, hence, according to
d21 X 1 d22 X 2 D2P 0 A10
Eluthers theory, the collapse force carried on the strut section
Pcr, is obtained by the following formula where d11, d12 and D1P are the unit displacements along the X axis
p2 Es I 4p2 Es I caused by X1, X2 and P, respectively; d21, d22 and D2P are the unit dis-
Pcr 2
2
A6 placements along the Y axis caused by X1, X2 and P, respectively.
ll l
Based on the Moore theorem, these coefcients can be calculated as
where I is the two moment of inertia, l is the degree of constraint at Z 2
the ends of the column. Then, the collapse stress of the meshes rp is 1 L
sin aL3
d11 M 1 2 dx A11
given by EI 0 3EI
4546 S.J. Li et al. / Acta Biomaterialia 10 (2014) 45374547

Z  2
1 L
sin aL2 E q
d12 M 1 M 2 dx  A12 C5 A25
EI 0 2EI Es qs
Z L  1:5
1 L
d22 M 2 2 dx A13 rp q
EI EI C6 A26
0 ry qs
Z L
1 1 SEM observation indicates that bending is the dominant defor-
D1P M1 MP dx P sin a cos aL3 A14 mation mechanism for rhombic dodecahedron struts in this work.
EI 0 3EI
The loading direction is consistent with direction 1, as shown in
Z Ref. [41]. Thus, the elastic and plastic deformation behavior of
1 L
PL2
D2P M2 MP dx  cos a A15 the rhombic dodecahedron open cellular structures studied are
EI 0 2EI
suggested to obey Eqs. (A25) and (A26).
Take Eqs. (A11)(A15) into Eqs. (A9) and (A10) to obtain

X 1 Pctg a A16 Appendix B. Figures with essential color discrimination

X2 0 A17 Certain gures in this article, particularly Figs. 1, 2, 58 and 10

are difcult to interpret in black and white. The full color images
During the deformation in this work, meshes along the X axis
can be found in the on-line version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
are free. Thus, the deection of strut CD, d, is mainly determined
j.actbio.2014.06.010.
by P:
3
P cos al References
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3Es I
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