Casting of Magnesium Foam for Bone Regrowth
Mentor 1
Pradeep Rohatgi
Start Date
1-5-2020 12:00 AM
Description
Large-scale bone damage can be mended by bone replacements. The porosity of bone can be artificially reproduced with foam structures, which can then be placed in the body to form a scaffold for the bone cell growth. Magnesium will degrade on account of corrosion due to the environmental conditions in the human body, thus the degradation of a magnesium foam leaves a newly grown bone. In this work, a low-cost pressure infiltration casting technique was developed which enables synthesis of magnesium foams which can be used as scaffolds. Foam and mold shapes were designed then 3D printed using PLA material, then covered in plaster to form the mold shape. After sintering, plaster molds were pressure infiltrated with AZ91E (Mg alloy) to form the magnesium foams, which have mechanical properties similar to human bone. Compression tests of the porous foams and the solid block exhibited improvement. Magnesium foams with porosity were compression tested and metallographically studied. These results show that a magnesium foam can be created with a controlled porosity viable for bone regrowth.
Casting of Magnesium Foam for Bone Regrowth
Large-scale bone damage can be mended by bone replacements. The porosity of bone can be artificially reproduced with foam structures, which can then be placed in the body to form a scaffold for the bone cell growth. Magnesium will degrade on account of corrosion due to the environmental conditions in the human body, thus the degradation of a magnesium foam leaves a newly grown bone. In this work, a low-cost pressure infiltration casting technique was developed which enables synthesis of magnesium foams which can be used as scaffolds. Foam and mold shapes were designed then 3D printed using PLA material, then covered in plaster to form the mold shape. After sintering, plaster molds were pressure infiltrated with AZ91E (Mg alloy) to form the magnesium foams, which have mechanical properties similar to human bone. Compression tests of the porous foams and the solid block exhibited improvement. Magnesium foams with porosity were compression tested and metallographically studied. These results show that a magnesium foam can be created with a controlled porosity viable for bone regrowth.
