Revealing the actual stress-strain behaviour of porous materials for scaffolds development

Market of artificial scaffolds for tissue regeneration or reinforcement is increasing. Specifically to musculoskeletal tissues, revealing the actual stress-strain behaviour of scaffold candidates is fundamental for their development. To give indications in the field, this study investigated the influence of porosity and of strain-dependent morphology on stress description, by a microtomography in situ test on novel electrospun hierarchical scaffolds biomimicking tendons and ligaments. Main indications for a procedure both practical and reliable getting close to the scaffold actual mechanical description resulted to consider initial volumetric fraction (i.e. porosity) and Poisson’s ratio (for predicting cross-section evolution with strain).