Local scaffold strains were evenly dispersed throughout the scaffold and doubled in intensity from 5% to 10% peak strain.
As discussed previously, scaffold deformation was independent of fluid flow (i.e. the fluid did not ‘push’ back). Thus, the solid deformations resulting from applied compression in six configurations (C+P-, C+P+, C+P++, C++P-, C++P+, C++P++) of the total eight conditions could be represented by the 2 compression magnitude groups alone (C+ and C++). The maximum deformations of the 1 Hz loading cycle occurred at 0.5 sec, the time of peak compressive strain, as we expected. At this moment, heat maps on the fluid-solid interface revealed evenly distributed principal strains throughout the entire scaffold (Suppl. Fig. 2, Fig. 4A) with few sites of strain concentrations. Distributions of principal strains in C+ showed that the majority of strains (>70%) were within 5,000-20,000 με. In C++, strain values were twice as much with 10% bulk strain compared to 5% (mean values 13,300 με in C+, 265,000 με in C++), indicating that the scaffold deformed linearly despite the complexity of the geometry (Fig. 4B).