Porous titanium implants can be produced by powder metallurgy in combination with suitable space holder materials. Various mechanical experiments were done to characterize this material regarding the influence of the processing parameters on microstructure and mechanical properties taking into account the properties of the human bone. In this paper, the anistropic behaviour of uniaxially compacted samples was analysed in compression tests and compared to the behaviour of isostatically pressed samples. The failure of the struts of the porous titanium and the crack- initiation and -growth was examined by in-situ SEM analysis.