Vibration properties of MEW PCL scaffolds as biomimetic tympanic membrane replacements

Introduction Synthetic materials like biopolymers can be fabricated in various shapes with different tissue engineering technologies. It was investigated, if it possible to utilize melt electro written (MEW) Polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds as a synthetic human tympanic membrane replacement.

Method Scaffolds with different structural parameters, e.g. fibre diameter, amount of layers, orientation angle and strand distance, were fabricated. Fibres with diameters of 10 µm and 15 µm with different strand distances of 150 µm and 250 µm were printed in several layers (4, 6 and 8 layers) and in different layer-to-layer orientations (45°, 90°). Hence, scaffolds with thicknesses ranging from 40 µm to 120 µm were fabricated. Additionally, some scaffolds were infiltrated with collagen type I. They were excited with a multi-sinusoidal signal between 100 Hz and 5 kHz and measured with laser-Doppler vibrometry.

Results and Discussion The vibration properties of the scaffolds varied, depending on the specific design. For example, an increase in fibre layers and fibre thickness led to an increased stiffness. Simply supported mounting was regarded as mostly appropriate, for a realistic comparison between the scaffolds and the human tympanic membrane in the test stand and in its native mounting. The vibration magnitude of the flat scaffolds was usually bigger than for the human tympanic membrane. Scaffolds with the same resonance frequency range as for tympanic membranes were successfully fabricated.

Conclusion The vibration properties of MEW PCL scaffolds can be controlled by defining the MEW fibre structure. Thus, they can be setup to be comparable to human tympanic membranes.

Poster-PDF A-1798.PDF

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Publication History

Article published online:
10 June 2020