COMPUTATIONAL MODELING AND SIMULATION STUDY ON DEGRADATION OF SCAFFOLDS IN BONE TISSUE ENGINEERING 

V A Jerron ^a, T Pathmathas ^a, D Velauthapillai ^b 

^a Clean Energy Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Jaffna, Jaffna 40 000, Sri Lanka

^b Faculty of Engineering and Science, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

Email: Dhayalan.Velauthapillai@hvl.no and pathmathas@univ.jfn.ac.lk

Tissue engineering principles in surgical treatment have achieved great progress within the past two decades. It provides a solution for damaged or infected tissues by cellular approach in which cells are seeded into the scaffolds to vitalize the growth or regeneration of functional tissue. Successful treatment depends on how the scaffold is degraded simultaneously with tissue regeneration. Degradation control of scaffold depends on its size, type of copolymerization, and its water absorption, pH, and temperature of the environment where it is placed. Critical understanding of degradation would enable us to use suitable material  for constructing Scaffolds with the best design. In this regard, this work focuses on developing a model to predict the bio-degradation (the molecular weight reduction) of 3D scaffolds based on porosity activity, and the effects of environmental conditions such as pH, diffusion of flow medium, and geometry of scaffold through a probabilistic approach. The simulated volume will be considered to split uniformly between the solid and pore regions of the scaffold along with the ratio equal to the scaffold’s bulk porosity. The stimulated volume will be broken down into components on the exterior area of the scaffold (surface elements) and components inside the scaffold volume (bulk element). The consequences of degradation period, molecular weight dispersion, pH, amount of degradation, and loss of mass on scaffolds will also be simulated.

Keywords:  tissue engineering, scaffold, degradation, regeneration, porosity