Highly porous poly(DL-lactic acid) (PDLLA) foams and Bioglass-filled PDLLA composite foams were characterized and evaluated in vitro as bone tissue engineering scaffolds. The hypothesis was that the combination of PDLLA with Bioglass in a porous structure would result in a bioresorbable and bioactive composite, capable of supporting osteoblast adhesion, spreading and viability. Composite and un...

Most of the common foams are a two-phase medium of gas and liquid with a particular structure consisting of gas pockets trapped in a network of thin liquid lms and plateau borders. Some well known foams are bubble baths, dishwater detergents and the foam head on beers. Many oils foam when trapped gas is suddenly released under conditions of an abrupt drop in pressure. In some re ners in which t...

The struts of reticulated aluminum foams were coated with nanocrystalline Ni–W by electrodeposition. The thickness and composition of these high-strength coatings are controlled by varying the bath chemistry, applied current conditions and deposition time. Despite an increase in density as compared to the uncoated foams, the coated foams exhibit improvements in both absolute and specific streng...

Mechanics of CNT-reinforced nano-cellular PMMA nanocomposites are investigated using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. Firstly, static uniaxial stretching of bulk PMMA polymer is simulated and the results are compared with literature. Then, nano-cellular foams with different relative densities are constructed and subjected to static uniaxial stretching and obtained stress-strain cu...

Phosphate glass (PG) of the composition 0.46(CaO)-0.04(Na(2)O)-0.5(P(2)O(5)) was used as filler in poly-L-lactic acid (PLA) foams developed as degradable scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. The effect of PG on PLA was assessed both in bulk and porous composite foams. Composites with various PG content (0, 5, 10, and 20 wt %) were melt-extruded, and either compression-molded or foamed through...

The current study is focused on exploring the possibility of reinforcing syntactic foams with carbon nanofibers (CNFs). Syntactic foams are hollow, particle-filled composites that are widely used in marine structures and are now finding applications in other modes of transportation due to their high stiffness-to-weight ratio. The compressive properties of syntactic foams reinforced with CNFs ar...

The discomfort associated to the use of orthosis results mainly from friction between the coating material, in this case the foams, and human skin. Although, nowadays the use of such devices is common, there is few information concerning the influence of the properties of the foams in the tribological behavior of the orthosis. In this study it was investigated the effect of the morphology, mech...

The origin of diffusive transport of light in dry foams is still under debate. In this paper, we consider the random walks of photons as they are reflected or transmitted by liquid films according to the rules of ray optics. The foams are approximately modeled by three-dimensional Voronoi tessellations with varying degree of disorder. We study two cases: A constant intensity reflectance and the...