Design of Titanium Alloy Femoral Stem Cellular Structure for Stress Shielding and Stem Stability: Computational Analysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The present manuscript titled "Design of Titanium Alloy Femoral Stem Cellular Structure for Stress Shielding and Stem Stability: Computational Analysis" describes the computational analysis of various porous designs in metallic femoral stems. The manuscript is well written. Following are the specific comments-
- The authors state "fifteen different designs using different arrangements of volumetric porosities within the stem’s layers". All the different arrangements used for the study must be graphically represented in the manuscript with their corresponding analysis for better comprehension.
- Why the authors have chosen a cubical porous structure rather than a random pore geometry for this analysis? A random porous structure is much more anatomically relevant to the actual bone structure.
Author Response
The authors state "fifteen different designs using different arrangements of volumetric porosities within the stem’s layers". All the different arrangements used for the study must be graphically represented in the manuscript with their corresponding analysis for better comprehension.
Authors response: We thank the reviewer for his/ her comments. The designs here refer to the functional graded designs. This have already being shown in the original version of the manuscript in Figure 3.
Why the authors have chosen a cubical porous structure rather than a random pore geometry for this analysis? A random porous structure is much more anatomically relevant to the actual bone structure.
Authors response: We thank the reviewer for his/ her comments. We agree with the reviewer that random pore geometry is more anatomically relevant, however it will not be easy to customize random designs for patients. The only possible way is through topology optimization but this will add complexity to the design process and analysis. Besides this, random pore can be an issue when 3D printing (overhanging). To simplify the design process and to avoid issues while 3D printing, the authors decided to go with the current structure.
Reviewer 2 Report
The purpose of this manuscript is to design titanium alloy femoral stems with cubic porous structures that will be able to reduce stress shielding and promote stem stability.
This research goal is clear and can provide the design concept for orthopedic devices. However, there are still have some weaknesses in this article that can be improved.
1. The text in the figure was too small with poor resolution.
2. It too many words for the conclusion section, please try to shorten it.
Author Response
The text in the figure was too small with poor resolution.
Authors reply: We thank the reviewer for his/her comment. The figures were improved as requested.
It too many words for the conclusion section, please try to shorten it.
Authors reply: We thank the reviewer for his/her comment. We had tried to shorten the conclusion to our best. We believe the current conclusion length is required to represent the work at hand. Thank you for your kind understanding.
