PSI - Issue 82

Tsanka Dikova et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 82 (2026) 58–64 Dikova et al. / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2026) 000–000

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synthesized tissue and the formation of adequate capillary network through the device, providing nutrients and gases to the developing cells. For the bone tissue, optimal minimal pore size should be 300-400 μm and the optimal maximum one: 600-700 μm (Zhang et al. (2022).

Fig. 6. The average pores width of 3D printed samples, measured by CBCT and SEM.

In our study, increasing of the tissue sizes with 20 % and 40 % led to porosity increase up to 60-64 %. These values were close to that of the ideal bone tissue (Luo et al., 2021). However, the average width of pores increased up to 786 792 μm which is on the upper limit for pore sizes (Zhang et al., 2022). The bone pores samples of Group 2 satisfied both requirements for optimum sizes, but their porosity was too low. It should be expected the samples of the two groups to provide enough space for the development of newly synthesized tissue, however the specimens of Group 2 would have higher compression strength due to their high density. Fig. 7. Distribution of pores’ sizes in: (a), (b), (c) bone samples; (c), (d), (f) Bone pores samples with different magnifications: (a), (d) 0%; (b), (e) 20%; (c), (f) 40 %. SEM.