Continuous fibre reinforced polymers as connective tissue replacement

Clinical situations that require repairing of connective tissues are common in the surgical care of orthopaedic and dentistry patients. Composite materials can be very convenient for such an application, since it is possible to obtain tissue substitutes with the desired mechanical properties (in particular modulus and strength) by carefully choosing the characteristics of the composite with the help of micromechanics and laminate theory. For instance, it is not difficult to obtain materials whose properties are tailored to the specific application, even pointwise, thus leading to an optimisation of the material itself. In this report the mechanical behaviour of polymers and continuous fibre reinforced polymers is investigated and compared to the behaviour of connective tissues. The design and the manufacturing of composite structures, tailored to simulate the mechanical properties of the soft and hard tissues surrounding the prostheses (i.e. the hip, the mandible, tendons and ligaments prostheses), are hence reviewed, highlighting the advantages of using composite biomaterials in the selected applications. As an example, the authors introduce a novel functionally graded composite mandible to be used for in vitro investigations. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd.