Research on the mechanical properties of bone scaffold reinforced by magnesium alloy/bioceramics composite with stereolithography double channels

Focusing on the poor mechanical strength of porous bioceramics bone scaffold, and taking into account of the good mechanical properties of biodegradable magnesium alloy, we proposed a novel method to fabricate magnesium alloy/bioceramics composite bone scaffold with stereolithography double channels. Firstly, a scaffold structure without mutually connected double channels was designed. Then, an optimized bioceramics scaffold was fabricated according to stereolithography and gel-casing. Molten AZ31 magnesium alloy was perfused into the secondary channel of scaffold by low-pressure casting, and magnesium alloy/bioceramics composite bone scaffold was obtained when magnesium alloy was solidified. The compression test showed that the strength of bioceramics scaffold with only one channel and without magnesium alloy was (9.76 ± 0.64) MPa, while the strength of magnesium alloy/bioceramics composite scaffold with double channels was (17.25 ± 0.88) MPa. It can be concluded that the magnesium alloy/bioceramics composite is obviously able to improve the scaffold strength.