Ultrasound-assisted permeability improvement and acoustic characterization for solid-state fabricated PLA foams

In the present study, power ultrasound is applied to improve the permeability of the solid-state fabricated PLA foams with different cell sizes. It is experimentally proved that cell interconnection and the permeability is improved with the increasing of power ultrasound radiation intensity. Furthermore, an insert-substitution testing approach is put forward to perform acoustic measurement and property characterization for the PLA foams before and after ultrasound radiation. The experimental results indicate that the attenuation coefficient of the close-celled PLA foams decreases exponentially with respect to the saturation pressure and it shows linear behavior with respect to the ultrasound radiation intensity. The favorable results suggest the feasibility of the proposed technologies of ultrasound-assisted permeability improvement and acoustic characterization for the application of the solid-state foamed PLA foams in tissue engineering.

► An ultrasound-assisted permeability improvement technology is proposed.
► Pulsed power ultrasound is employed to enhance the interconnectivity for PLA foams.
► An insert-substitution acoustic testing approach for the PLA foams is developed.
► The attenuation coefficient decreases exponentially with the saturation pressure.
► The attenuation coefficient shows linear behavior with the ultrasound radiation intensity.