Bioreactor cultivation and remodelling simulation for cartilage replacement material.

For the development of articular cartilage replacement material, it is essential to study the dependence between mechanical stimulation and cell activity in cellular specimens. Bioreactor cultivation is widely used for this purpose, however, it is hardly possible to obtain a quantitative relationship between collagen type II production and applied loading history. For this reason, a bioreactor system is developed, measuring applied forces and number of loading cycles by means of a load cell and a forked light barrier, respectively. Parallel to the experimental study, a numerical model by means of the finite element method is proposed to simulate the evolution of material properties during cyclic stimulation. In this way, a numerical model can be developed for arbitrary deformation cases.