Zirconia (ZrO2) and alumina (Al2O3) based ceramics are widely used for load-bearing applications in bone repair due to their excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility. They are often regarded as bioinert since no direct bone-material interface is created unless a porous structure intercedes, leading to better bone bonding. In this regard, investigating interactions between cells and porous ceramics is of great interest. In the present study, we report on the successful fabrication of sintered alumina A-61, zirconia Z-50 and zirconia/alumina composite ZA-60 ceramics with medium porosities of 61, 50 and 60%, respectively, indicating a bimodal pore size distribution and good interconnectivity. They exhibit elastic moduli of 3-10 GPa and compressive strength values of 60-240 MPa, similar to those of human cortical bone.We performed in vitro cell-material investigations comparing the adhesion, proliferation and differentiation of mouse pre-osteoblasts MC3T3-E1 on the three porous materials. While all three ceramics demonstrate a strong cell attachment, better cell spreading is observed on zirconia-containing substrates. Significantly higher cell growth was quantified on the latter ceramics, revealing an increased alkaline phosphatase activity, higher collagen production and increased calcium biomineralization compared to A-61. Hence, these porous zirconia-containing ceramics elicit superior biological responses over porous alumina of similar porosity, promoting enhanced biological interaction, with potential use as non-degradable bone grafts or as implant coatings.

Two classes of composite materials are considered: classical metal–ceramic composites with reinforcing hard inclusions as well as hard ceramics matrix with soft gel inclusions. Movable cellular automaton method is used for modeling the mechanical behaviors of such different heterogeneous materials. The method is based on particle approach and may be considered as a kind of discrete element method. The main feature of the method is the use of many-body forces of inter-element interaction within the formalism of simply deformable element approximation. It was shown that the strength of reinforcing particles and the width of particle-binder interphase boundaries had determining influence on the service characteristics of metal–ceramic composite. In particular, the increasing of strength of carbide inclusions may lead to significant increase in the strength and ultimate strain of composite material. On the example of porous zirconia ceramics it was shown that the change in the mechanical properties of pore surface leads to the corresponding change in effective elastic modulus and strength limit of the ceramic sample. The less is the pore size, the more is this effect. The increase in the elastic properties of pore surface of ceramics may reduce its fracture energy