Connectivity for mass and fluid transport in three dimensional two-phase structures

Porous three-dimensional (3D) tissue scaffolds provide vital function for cell attachment, proliferation, and guidance of new tissue formation. In the cellular tissue engineering process, heterogeneous tissue scaffolds play an important role in heterogeneous tissue formation. The goal of this research is to develop an approach that will assemble characterized unit cell structures into a larger heterogeneous scaffold that is suitable for tissue regrowth. To construct the assembly, 3D skeletons are first generated for unit cell structures, and for every skeleton point, the physical properties and quantities under given flow conditions are assigned. A unit cell alignment approach then quantifies the matching potential between two 3D skeletons. Based on the priority of the physical properties that were ranked prior to the assembly process, unit cells are assembled into a larger scaffold in a bottom-up fashion.