Stress shielding in dental and orthopedic implants is a long-standing hurdle, and trabecular porous architecture to improve bone ingrowth is deemed to be a potential solution. Fabricating Ti6Al4V components with dense-porous bilayer structures is complicated with limited lab-scale and commercial success. Here, a green dough-forming technique with metal powders is successfully explored to develop heterogeneous structures with a monolith-like dense-porous interface. The porous region achieved 70% porosity with a 25 MPa compressive strength comparable to human cancellous bone. Due to its simplicity and versatility, this process is a promising solution for developing and mass-manufacturing customized designs for bone-related implants with improved bone ingrowth and osseointegration.
Keywords: Ti6Al4V dental implants; Widmanstätten structure; bimodal roughness; dense-porous bilayers; foam templating; green net shaping.