Improvement on tensile strength and fatigue performances of meshed gum metal plates for bone graft applications

Degenerative intervertebral discs have a sign of epidemic as one of diseases caused by aging and lifestyle habits. Currently practiced treatments called spinal fusion surgery using pure titanium or titanium alloy implant products have the problems like overloading on healthy nature bones caused by the extra stiffness and heavy weight of such metal implants. Therefore, creation of implant products that meets mechanism like density, elasticity/rigidity of nature bones are required to reduce the burden on patient's health bones. Meshed titanium plates for bone graft applications have improved with excellent three-dimensional (3D) flexibility, lower elastic modulus and higher strength in previous studies. In this study, mesh structures as applied on Gum Metal plates with high biocompatibility are interested and their tensile strength/fatigue performance are investigated through analytical and experimental approaches for implant application on intervertebral disc defections. Based on different basic mesh shapes designed in this study, sample meshed Gum Metal plates were fabricated by laser cutting process and tensile fatigue experiments were executed. It concluded that high strength and fatigue performance of meshed Gum Metal plates can be obtained by using with some kind of designed basic mesh shapes.