Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 5: Posters: Biopolymers and Biomaterials

BP 5.17: Poster

Monday, March 22, 2010, 17:15–20:00, Poster B1

Elastic and Morphological Properties of Porous Biomaterials — •Sebastian Kapfer, Susan Sporer, Klaus Mecke, and Gerd E. Schröder-Turk — Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen, Germany

The relationship between effective elastic moduli and morphological properties of microstructured porous biomaterials including bone, wood, biomineralised skeletons of crustaceans, biopolymer networks and cubic lipid mesophases remains an open question. We compute effective elastic moduli and morphological properties of ordered porous media models based on triply-periodic minimal and constant-mean-curvature surfaces of cubic symmetry.

Bulk and shear moduli are computed using voxel-based finite-element method considering the solid fraction to be a homogeneous linear elastic solid. For fixed volume fraction of 50%, we find that within classes of geometrically similar media the effective bulk modulus decreases with increasing heterogeneity of the domain thickness of the solid fraction which is quantified by using euclidean distance maps and percolation critical radii. On the other hand, we find significant differences between the elastic moduli of topologically distinct classes of media. In particular, a porous medium where the solid fraction comprises a thick warped sheet separating two hollow labyrinthine network domains has larger bulk modulus than a medium where both the solid and the void fraction are represented by congruent labyrinthine domains.