Claims
- 1. A non-woven porous mesh in sheet form, said mesh comprising:
- a continuous sheet having a substantially uniform thickness between opposing sides;
- a series of substantially parallel and linked main troughs extending in one horizontal direction along a first side of said sheet, said main troughs having a depth in said sheet that extends substantially into said sheet, said main troughs are spaced from adjacent main troughs by a distance approximately 1/2 a width of said main trough, said main troughs further linked to co-linear troughs by a first series of secondary shallow troughs;
- one or more small openings extending through the bottom of each main trough to a second side of said sheet, said openings having a diameter that is approximately 1/3 the width of said main trough; and
- a second series of secondary shallow troughs extending substantially perpendicular to and connecting said main troughs.
- 2. The porous mesh of claim 2 wherein said sheet thickness ranges between 200 to 2000 microns.
- 3. The porous mesh of claim 2 wherein the depth of said secondary troughs are approximately 1/2 the depth of said main troughs.
- 4. The porous mesh of claim 2 wherein said main troughs extend approximately 80 percent through said sheet thickness.
- 5. The porous mesh of claim 1 wherein said small openings have a diameter that is approximately equal to the width of said secondary troughs.
- 6. The porous mesh of claim 5 wherein said first series of secondary troughs extend substantially in parallel through said sheet.
- 7. The porous mesh of claim 6 wherein said second series of secondary troughs extend substantially parallel through said sheet.
- 8. A porous three dimensional body formed by wrapping the porous mesh of claim 1 around a mandrel having a select shape characteristic, wherein said porous mesh is wrapped in multiple layers to form a network of three dimensional pores extending throughout said body, and said mesh is layered front-to-back.
- 9. The porous body of claim 8 wherein said shape characteristic is cylindrical.
- 10. The porous body of claim 8 wherein said layers of mesh are adhesive bonded to adjacent layers.
- 11. A method of forming a porous sheet of claim 1 comprising the steps of:
- making a primary form corresponding in shape to the final mesh structure;
- casting a negative form by placing a curable material in fluid state into said primary form, allowing said material to cure and removing said cured negative form from said primary form;
- casting said porous mesh by placing a mesh material in said negative form and allowing said mesh material to partial cure;
- before said mesh material is completely cured, remove said mesh material from said negative form and wrap it around a shape defining mandrel; and
- complete mesh curing while on said shape defining mandrel to form a shaped body having a three dimensional pore structure.
- 12. The method of claim 11 wherein said primary form is made by machining a metal sheet.
- 13. The method of claim 12 wherein said metal sheet is brass.
- 14. The method of claim 12 wherein said curable material is silicone rubber.
- 15. The method of claim 11 wherein said curable mesh material is hydroxyapatite (HA) and gelatin.
- 16. The method of claim 15 further comprising the step of chilling the HA prior to wrapping the mesh around said mandrel.
- 17. The method of claim 16 further comprising the step of drying the shaped body after removing it from the mandrel.
RELATED APPLICATIONS
This is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/134,260 filed Oct. 8, 1993, which is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/647,999 filed Jan. 30, 1991 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,788).
US Referenced Citations (13)
Divisions (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
647999 |
Jan 1991 |
|
Continuation in Parts (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
134260 |
Oct 1993 |
|