“Product-oriented engineering” applied to the development of porous scaffolds for tissue engineering

peer reviewedThis work applies a “product-oriented engineering” approach to the development of porous scaffolds for tissue engineering. Polylactic acid scaffolds were obtained by a freeze-drying process. Their 2D/3D microstructure was characterized by X-ray microtomography and related to the operating conditions used. Two types of scaffold end-use properties were characterized in relation to their microstructure: the mechanical and the transport properties. Scaffold young's modulus was computed from data measured on tension-compression devices. To evaluate the permeability, Darcy’s experiments were carried out. The obtained results allowed highlighting the quantitative relationships existing between elaboration conditions, microstructure and end-use properties of the fabricated PLA scaffolds. © 2014 International Society for Industrial Process Tomography