Developments in Titanium
Engineered Porous Metals for
Implants
B. Vamsi Krishna, Weichang Xue, Susmita Bose, and Amit Bandyopadhyay
Interest is significant in patient-spe-
cific implants with the possibility of
guided tissue regeneration, particular-
ly for load-bearing implants. For such
implants to succeed, novel design ap-
proaches and fabrication technologies
that can achieve balanced mechanical
and functional performance in the im-
plants are necessary. This article is fo-
cused on porous load-bearing implants
with tailored micro- as well as macro-
structures using laser-engineered net
shaping (LENS“), a solid freeform
fabrication or rapid prototyping tech-
nique that can be used to manufacture
patient-specific implants. This review
provides an insight into LENS, some
properties of porous metals, and the
potential applications of this process to
fabricate unitized structures which can
eliminate longstanding challenges in
load-bearing implants to increase their
in-vivo lifetime, such as in a total hip
prosthesis.
INTRODUCTION
The major drawbacks of current
load-bearing implants, reducing their
in-vivo life, are a mismatch of Young’s
modulus and a weak interfacial bond
between bone and metallic implant ma-
terials. In addition, wear-induced oste-
olysis and aseptic loosening in metal-
on-polymer implants, and absence of
high recoverable strain (~2%) as well
as hysteresis in biocompatible metals,
similar to natural bone, are other fac-
tors that limit the in-vivo life of im-
plants. One consideration to achieve a
strong interfacial bond and also to re-
duce modulus mismatch has been the
development of implants with porous
metals. Use of porous metals can ef-
fectively reduce the modulus mis-
match and provide pathways for bone
in-growth through the pores for stable
2008 May • JOM
How would you…
…describe the overall significance
of this paper?
The lifetimes of load-bearing
metal implants in the human body
can be increased significantly
via compositional and structural
modifications of the implants.
Advanced technologies are needed to
manufacture these advanced designs.
This article discusses properties of
porous metals and the application
of the laser-engineered net shaping
process to manufacture unitized
structures of load-bearing metal
implants.
…describe this work to a
materials science and engineering
professional with no experience in
your technical specialty?
A mismatch of Young’s modulus and
a weak interfacial bond between
bone and metallic implant materials
are the two major concerns for
current load-bearing implants,
which reduce their effective lifetime
when implanted. Implants with
functional gradation in porosity
and/or composition can potentially
reduce these problems—a topic
that is discussed in this article in
reference to how to manufacture such
structures, as well.
…describe this work to a
layperson?
Solid metal bone implants are stiffer
than bone. Because of this higher
stiffness, bone becomes osteoporotic
surrounding the implanted area.
Moreover, the implants become
loose with time and cause severe
pain, which then requires surgical
intervention. Engineered porous
metals can be used to reduce this
stiffness mismatch between bone and
implant, and also provide pathways
for tissue ingrowth through the pores.
Therefore, porous implants have the
potential to reduce bone loss in the
surrounding areas when implanted
and also loosening of implants. Thus
the lifetime of these porous metallic
implants can be significantly higher.
www.tms.org/jom.html
Overview
long-term anchorage or biological fixa-
tion of the implant.1,2
Conventional powder metallurgical
processing has been used to fabricate
surface-treated or fully porous metals3–8
for biomedical applications. These con-
ventionally sintered metals are often
very brittle and pore size, shape, vol-
ume fraction, and distribution are dif-
ficult to control. These factors all have
a major influence on mechanical and
biological properties. Other fabrication
techniques that use foaming agents or
molten metal suffer from typical limi-
tations such as contamination, impurity
phases, limited and predetermined part
geometries, and limited control over the
size, shape, and distribution of porosi-
ty. In addition, to mimic multiple tis-
sues and tissue interfaces on the same
implant, implants with gradients in po-
rosity and pore sizes that will allow on
one side of the implant high vascular-
ization and direct osteogenesis, while
promoting osteochondral ossification
on the other, are difficult to manufac-
ture using those techniques.
Further, the relatively higher wear
rate of traditional hip replacements
with ultrahigh-molecular-weight poly-
ethylene liner is a cause of serious con-
cern due to osteolysis and aseptic loos-
ening, which is one of the major fac-
tors limiting the life of hip prostheses.9
Innovative designs such as functionally
graded acetabular shells with open po-
rosity on one side (in contact with the
bone) to improve cell-material interac-
tions and a hard coating on the other
side (in contact with femoral head) to
increase the wear resistance can signif-
icantly improve the implant’s in-vivo
life by completely eliminating the need
for acetabular liners. While a wear-re-
sistant alloy coating on metal substrates
seems plausible, there is only one me-
45
tallic alloy combination (i.e., Co-Cr-
Mo and Ti-6Al-4V) suitable for surgi-
cal implants, which shows metallurgi-
cal incompatibility.10 Although func-
tionally graded coatings can overcome
metallurgical incompatibility, it is diffi-
cult, if not impossible, to fabricate net-
shaped implants/structures with spatial
gradation in composition and structure
with conventional processing routes.
LASER-ENGINEERED NET
SHAPING
Over the past few years, direct fab-
rication of metallic components using
the solid freeform fabrication route
from computer-aided design (CAD)
files has been shown to be a viable and
promising near-net shape manufactur-
ing technology. One such process is la-
ser-engineered net shaping (LENS™),
which involves complete melting of
metal/alloy powders using a high-pow-
er laser beam as the heating source for
fabrication of near-net shape functional
parts. A schematic of the LENS pro-
cess is shown in Figure 1. The process
uses an neodymium-doped yttrium alu-
minium garnet laser, up to 4 kW power,
focused onto a metal substrate to create
a molten metal pool on the substrate.
Metal powder is then injected into the
metal pool, which melts and solidifies.
The substrate is then scanned relative to
the deposition head to write a metal line
with a finite width and thickness. Ras-
tering of the part back and forth to cre-
ate consecutive overlapping tracks and
fill material in the desired area allows
46
Figure 2. The formation of porosity during LENS processing.
a layer of material to be deposited. Fi-
nally, this procedure is repeated many
times along the Z-direction (i.e., height)
until the entire object represented in the
three-dimensional CAD model is pro-
duced on the substrate, which is a solid
or tailored-porosity object. Many me-
tallic, intermetallic, ceramic, and com-
posite powders have been successfully
processed using LENS.11–13
Because it is a CAD and layer-based
manufacturing process, LENS has a
significant advantage over convention-
al manufacturing methods in terms of
tailoring microstructure, shape, size,
and internal architectures, particularly
of porous structures, in one operation
by controlling different process pa-
rameters. Multiple powder feeding and
closed-loop melt pool control systems
facilitate fabrication of materials with
functional gradient in composition and/
or porosity across the section. Since the
fabrication is carried out in a protective
atmosphere with oxygen content less
Figure 1. A schematic
representation of LENS.
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than 10 ppm, LENS-processed materi-
als retain the purity of feedstock pow-
der, which is extremely important dur-
ing processing of materials for biomed-
ical applications. The LENS process in-
volves high solidification cooling rates
(103 to 105 K/s) leading to several mi-
crostructural benefits14 such as suppres-
sion of diffusion-controlled solid-state
phase transformations, formation of
supersaturated solutions and nonequi-
librium phases, formation of extremely
fine, refined microstructures with little
elemental segregation, and formation
of very fine second-phase particles (in-
clusions, carbides, etc.). Finally, it is a
reliable process that can be applied for
a direct low-volume manufacturing.
Net-Shaped Functional Porous
Implants
Novel design concepts15 have been
applied to make complex-shaped func-
tional implants with designed and func-
tionally graded interconnected porosity,
to suit natural bone, using LENS. Two
types of porosity, namely inter-particle
porosity and tool-path-based porosity,
can be introduced into the parts by con-
trolling LENS process parameters such
as laser power (P), scan spacing (h),
powder feed rate, laser scan speed (v),
and Z-increment or layer thickness (t).
Since the parts are made via layer-wise
deposition, and each layer consists of
a number of consecutive overlapping
tracks/scans, the final density of a
LENS processed part can be considered
as an average of the density of each
track/scan. The extent of powder melt-
ing in each track/scan depends on laser
energy input and decides the achievable
porosity in the final part. The total ener-
gy input per volume of each track/scan
(E) as a function of processing param-
JOM • May 2008
eters can be evaluated from16
P
E (1)
v–h–t
At appropriate LENS process pa-
rameters one can achieve the optimal
lowest energy input that ensures low-
er working temperatures and a small
amount of liquid phase around the
powder particles due to the partial melt-
ing of powder. These surface-melted
powders join together in the presence
of liquid metal at the particle-particle
interfaces, leaving some inter-particle
porosity. Figure 2 shows the forma-
tion of porosity in each track. Particle
bonding in this case is a direct result of
localized melting and resolidification
as against solid-state sintering in the
powder metallurgical route. Therefore,
the inherent brittleness associated with
solid-state sintered metal powders is
completely eliminated, potentially en-
hancing the implant properties such as
fatigue. Structures with different poros-
ity parameters and internal architecture
with a designed gradient across the part
a ing total porosities in the range of 10
b level of alkaline phosphates expres-
Figure 3. (a) LENS-processed porous titanium structures. Group I: samples with residual
porosity (<40 vol.%), Group II: samples with tool path based porosity 50 vol. %, Group
III: samples with internal architecture. (b) Net shape, functional hip stems fabricated using
LENS“.
2008 May • JOM
can also be fabricated by optimizing the
distance between two successive metal
roads (laser scans) and the thickness of
each metal layer. Moreover, by chang-
ing the deposition angles of laser scans
for each layer, the tool path based pores
can be oriented layer by layer leading
to a three-dimensional (3-D) intercon-
nected porosity. The individual laser
tracks/scans can also have inter-particle
porosity depending on the laser energy
input. Porous samples with different
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Figure 4. The modulus
of porous samples pro-
cessed using LENS.
The graph is construct-
ed based on the data
from References 15,
17, and 18.
total porosities in various biomedical
materials such as pure Ti, Ti-6Al-4V,
and NiTi alloys have been fabricated
using LENS15,17,18 with laser power be-
tween 150 W and 300 W, scan speeds
between 5 mm/s and 25 mm/s, powder
feed rate in the range of 15 g/min. and
38 g/min., and scan spacing between
0.76 mm and 1.27 mm. Figure 3 shows
typical porous titanium samples and
actual hip stems produced via LENS at
Washington State University.
The experimental data shown in Fig-
ure 4 indicate that samples with varying
amounts of total porosity can be made
using LENS by changing processing
parameters.15,17,18 Moreover, the modu-
lus of laser-processed materials can be
tailored between 2 GPa and 90 GPa to
match that of natural bone by introduc-
vol.% and 60 vol.%. Similarly, porous
NiTi alloy samples with 12–36% po-
rosity exhibit low Young’s modulus
between 2–18 GPa as well as high
compressive strength and up to 4% re-
coverable strain.18 These porous metals
with modulus similar to bone and open
porosity in the range of 53% to 72%
of total porosity not only reduce the
stress-shielding but also have potential
to significantly improve bone cell-im-
plant interaction. An in-vitro cell-mate-
rials interactions study has been carried
out on laser-processed porous titanium
samples.19
Porous titanium samples enhanced
bone cell proliferation by forming
more extracellular matrix and a high
sion19 than observed in fully dense tita-
nium, which can accelerate the integra-
tion of a porous implant with host bone
tissue. A critical pore size of 200 Mm
47

Unmelted Ti-6Al-4V Particles
Alloy
Ti-6Al-4V Alloy
Ti-6Al-4V
Increasing Co-Cr-Mo Alloy Concentration
Figure 5. Typical microstructures of laser-processed Co-Cr-Mo graded coating on porous
Ti-6Al-4V alloy.20
or higher has been identified for cell
in-growth into porous samples. It was
also shown15 that by changing the pore
shape from spherical to more irregular,
one can reduce the modulus of these
porous samples. Therefore, LENS pro-
vides more flexibility for designers to
tailor the modulus of samples with-
out changing their bulk density or to-
tal pore volume. It is apparent that this
versatility will allow the fabrication of
implants with different porosities, pore
sizes, and mechanical properties that
can mimic the complex architecture of
bone-specific sites to optimize bone tis-
sue regeneration.
Functionally Graded Structures
The uniform and gradual changes
in composition, crystallinity, and/or
grain structure across the interface of
functionally gradient materials provide
unique functionality and performance
for medical applications. As stated ear-
lier, unitized structures such as func-
tionally graded acetabular shells with
open porosity on one side and a hard
coating on the other side significantly
improve the implant’s in-vivo life by
reducing wear-induced osteolysis. In-
dependently controllable two-powder
feeders in LENS enable variation of
composition and porosity simultane-
ously in one operation to manufacture
such novel implant structures. Func-
tionally graded structures with a hard
and wear-resistant Co-Cr-Mo alloy sur-
face on one side and a porous Ti-6Al-
4V alloy on the other side with a met-
allurgically sound interface have been
produced using LENS.20 These compo-
sitionally graded structures consisted
of 100% Ti-6Al-4V alloy in the first six
48
0.6 mm
porous layers. The composition in the
transition region of the gradient struc-
ture was varied from 100% Ti-6Al-4V
alloy at the first layer to various con-
centrations of Co-Cr-Mo alloy at the
top layer over 5–6 layers. Because of
metallurgical incompatibility a 100%
Co-Cr-Mo transition from Ti-6Al-4V
could not be made. However, crack-
free structures containing up to 86%
Co-Cr-Mo on one side of the structure
and 100% porous Ti-6Al-4V alloy on
the other side have been fabricated with
excellent reproducibility. The typical
microstructure of such a gradient struc-
ture is shown in Figure 5.20
Extremely high cooling rates dur-
ing laser processing prevented the for-
mation of intermetallic compounds by
limiting the interaction time between
metallurgically incompatible titanium
and cobalt at high temperatures. The
absence of intermetallic compounds
in these structures is very important to
retain wear resistance and biocompat-
ibility. As can be seen from the micro-
structure, the temperature fluctuations
in the liquid metal pool due to chang-
es in the composition resulted in inad-
equate mixing and unmelted Ti-6Al-
4V powder in the first few layers of the
transition region. Such microstructural
non-uniformity can be eliminated ei-
ther by increasing the laser energy in-
put or by using a finer alloy powder.
Gradient coatings with 86% Co-Cr-
Mo in the top surface showed ~184%
increase in the surface hardness (com-
pared to 100% Ti-6Al-4V alloy) with
more than double the living cell densi-
ty observed on 100% Co-Cr-Mo alloy.
This demonstrates that the application
of LENS to fabricate novel porous and
www.tms.org/jom.html
unitized structures with functional gra-
dation in composition and/or porosity
can potentially eliminate the longstand-
ing issues such as stress-shielding, poor
interfacial bond between the host tis-
sue and the implant, and wear-induced
bone loss in load-bearing implants to
increase the in-vivo lifetime.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge financial
support from the W.M. Keck Foun-
dation, the Office of Naval Research
(Grant #N00014-1-05-0583), and the
National Science Foundation (Grant
#CMMI-0600739).
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B. Vamsi Krishna, Weichang Xue, Susmita Bose,
and Amit Bandyopadhyay are with W.M. Keck Bio-
medical Materials Research Laboratory, School of
Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washing-
ton State University, Pullman, WA 99164-2920, USA.
Dr. Vamsi Krishna can be reached at vamsi23@ya-
hoo.com.
JOM • May 2008