Biomechanical Analysis of Bioresorbable Maxillofacial Plates

Abstract

Bioresorbable devices are actually extensively applied for bone healing. These products are exposed to several physical, chemical and mechanical requirements. For this reason, mechanical performance under different loading conditions should be exhaustively analyzed in order to warrant the long term success. In this work, mechanical behavior of polylactic acid (PLA) maxillofacial miniplate implant was investigated by mechanical tests and numerical simulations. The obtained results showed, that thread profile and screws location, respect to the broken bone plane, represent key factors for stress distributions. On the other hand, experimental tests and simulations exhibited similar displacement values.