Fatigue prediction in fibrin poly-epsilon-caprolactone macroporous scaffolds

Tissue engineering applications rely on scaffolds that during its service life, either for in-vivo or in vitro applications, are under loading. The variation of the mechanical condition of the scaffold is strongly relevant for cell culture and has scarcely been addressed. The fatigue life cycle of poly-epsilon-caprolactone, PCL, scaffolds with and without fibrin as filler of the pore structure were characterized both dry and immersed in liquid water. It is observed that the there is a strong increase from 100 to 500 in the number of loading cycles before collapse in the samples tested in immersed conditions due to the more uniform stress distributions within the samples, the fibrin loading playing a minor role in the mechanical performance of the scaffolds.This work is funded by FEDER funds through the "Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade - COMPETE" and by national funds arranged by FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia, project references NANO/NMed-SD/0156/2007, PTDC/CTM-NAN/112574/2009 and PEST-C/FIS/UI607/2011. The authors also thank funding from "Matepro-Optimizing Materials and Processes", ref. "NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000037", co-funded by the "Programa Operacional Regional do Norte" (ON.2 - O Novo Norte), under the "Quadro de Referencia Estrategico Nacional" (QREN), through the "Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional" (FEDER). JAP and VS thank the FCT for the SFRWBD/64586/2009/ and SFRWBPD/63148/2009 grants, respectively. JLGR acknowledge the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through project No. MAT2010-21611-C03-01 (including the FEDER financial support). CIBER-BBN is an initiative funded by the VI National R&D&i Plan 2008-2011, Iniciativa Ingenio 2010, Consolider Program, GIBER Actions and financed by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III with assistance from the European Regional Development Fund.Panadero, JA.; Vikingsson, LKA.; Gómez Ribelles, JL.; Sencadas, VJGDS.; Lanceros-Mendez, S. (2013). Fatigue prediction in fibrin poly-epsilon-caprolactone macroporous scaffolds. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials. 28:55-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmbbm.2013.07.01155612