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Micro-Computed Tomography Based Computational Fluid Dynamics for the Determination of Shear Stresses in Scaffolds Within a Perfusion Bioreactor

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Abstract

Perfusion bioreactors are known to exert shear stresses on cultured cells, leading to cell differentiation and enhanced extracellular matrix deposition on scaffolds. The influence of the scaffold’s porous microstructure is investigated for a polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold with a regular microarchitecture and a silk fibroin (SF) scaffold with an irregular network of interconnected pores. Their complex 3D geometries are imaged by micro-computed tomography and used in direct pore-level simulations of the entire scaffold–bioreactor system to numerically solve the governing mass and momentum conservation equations for fluid flow through porous media. The velocity field and wall shear stress distribution are determined for both scaffolds. The PCL scaffold exhibited an asymmetric distribution with peak and plateau, while the SF scaffold exhibited a homogenous distribution and conditioned the flow more efficiently than the PCL scaffold. The methodology guides the design and optimization of the scaffold geometry.

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Abbreviations

CFD:

Computational fluid dynamics

micro-CT:

Micro-computed tomography

DPLS:

Direct pore-level simulations

ECM:

Extracellular matrix

PCL:

Polycaprolactone

REV:

Representative elementary volume

ROI:

Region of interest

SF:

Silk fibroin

u :

Velocity (m/s)

y :

Height above the phase boundary (m)

μ :

Dynamic viscosity (kg/m/s)

ρ :

Density (kg/m3)

τ w :

Wall shear stress (Pa)

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the European Union (BIODESIGN FP7-NMP-2010-LARGE-4). We thank H. Fries and A. Haselbacher for their support with the computational grid generation.

Conflict of interest

None.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Energy Technology, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Emilie Zermatten & Aldo Steinfeld

  2. Institute for Biomechanics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Jolanda Rita Vetsch, Davide Ruffoni, Sandra Hofmann & Ralph Müller

  3. Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Liege, Liege, Belgium

    Davide Ruffoni

  4. Orthopaedic Biomechanics Group, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Sandra Hofmann

  5. Solar Technology Laboratory, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland

    Aldo Steinfeld

Authors
  1. Emilie Zermatten
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  2. Jolanda Rita Vetsch
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  3. Davide Ruffoni
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  4. Sandra Hofmann
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  5. Ralph Müller
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  6. Aldo Steinfeld
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aldo Steinfeld.

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Associate Editor Scott I Simon oversaw the review of this article.

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Zermatten, E., Vetsch, J.R., Ruffoni, D. et al. Micro-Computed Tomography Based Computational Fluid Dynamics for the Determination of Shear Stresses in Scaffolds Within a Perfusion Bioreactor. Ann Biomed Eng 42, 1085–1094 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-014-0981-0

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