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An Overview of 3D Printed Metal Implants

An Overview of 3D Printed Metal Implants

In the days when 3D printing was not yet developed to meet medical standards, metal implants were produced using traditional manufacturing methods like casting and machining. This posed several problems, like having to visit the medical center to prepare the cast mold impressions on the patient’s body, waiting for the implants to be manufactured, and having to go through iterations till the required shape and fit is achieved on the patient. These approaches were not patient friendly and led to delayed surgeries and treatments, which could have aggravated the severity of the medical condition of the patient. But thanks to the developments and extensive research put into metal 3D printing technologies, it has paved a way to efficiently produce metal 3D printed implants that can be customized specifically for the patient. Let’s take a dive into the widely used metal 3D printing methods for additively printing metal implants, the processes involved, and the advantages each of them offers.

Geometry Creation in CAD

The prosthetic that has to be made is visualized and a CAD model is designed with the help of the anatomical data obtained from CT/MRI scan. There are CAD automation tools that enable the designers to create the complex lattice geometries and internal pores in the implant models that specifically suit the patient. Implants like knees, hips, shoulders, ankles, etc. need tiny internal pores on the surface to stimulate bone growth and naturally allow integration of the bone with the implant.

 

Lattice structures like these can be created with software aids like Genesis and nTopology.

Metal 3D Printing

Intricate surface pores and complex geometries that are not possible to make in traditional machining and casting can be produced in additive manufacturing methods which served as a breakthrough in orthopedic healthcare. 

DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) and EBM (Electron Beam Melting) are the methods widely used for making implants. DMLS uses a metal powder bed and a laser to selectively melt and fuse metal powder particles to form the part layer by layer. EMB also uses a powder bed, but instead of a laser, an electron beam is used to fuse the metal particles together layer by layer to build the part. A quick comparison between the two is given below.

 

 

DMLS

EBM

Hear Source

Laser Beam

Electron Beam

Minimum beam resolution

100 micrometers

180 micrometers

Environment

Inert Gas Filled (Argon)

Vacuum

Layer height

30 micrometers

90 micrometers

Materials

Titanium alloys are the best suited materials for making implants as titanium is corrosion resistant to bodily fluids and the oxide layer that forms on top of it prevents it from further corrosion. Another great advantage of titanium is its biocompatibility, which does not trigger any harm to living tissues.

Advantages of 3D Printed Metal implants

  • Ability to quickly produce the parts in time to treat the patient as soon as possible. 
  • Customization options to create the implant as per the patient anatomy, size and requirement

Applications

 

As shown in the picture above, implants are used in cranioplasty (treating defects in the cranium bones) and arthroplasty (replacement joints for knee, hip etc.)

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Zhuhai CTC Electronic launches China’s first metal 3D printer

Desktop 3D printing has garnered all the media attention over last 3-4 years. Desktop 3D printing is considered the future while industrial 3D printing is projected as obsolete technology. But in reality, it is industrial segment which is growing faster. Many new applications are coming up at the industrial level and many new 3D printers are launched on regular basis with new capabilities. Within industrial 3D printing, metal 3D printing is growing the fastest. There is a high demand for metal 3D printer and metal 3D printing applications. Metal 3D printers are expected to garner a market share of 27% of the entire 3D printing industry. The technology is primarily being used in medical and industrial applications and companies are rapidly adding this technology to their manufacturing and prototyping workflow.

Despite the immense demand for metal 3D printing and despite the presence of huge manufacturing industry in China, there isn’t one single manufacturer of metal 3D printers in China. All metal 3D printers in China are imported from western countries who hold the patents for this technology. To address this gap, Zhuhai CTC Electronic Co is launching a series of Walnut family of metal 3D printers to their kitty. The launch and success of their desktop based FDM 3D printers has put them on world map and now they ventured into metal 3D printing technology. With both these technologies in their kitty, they are clearly China’s largest 3D printer manufacturers.

“We are the first and, to date, quite possibly the sole manufacturer in China to have built the dot-scan 3D operating system on our own, and, at variance with other domestic makers, we do not rely on technologies developed by foreign outsourcing firms. SLA and SLM are based on the same software algorithm, enabling rapid research and development,” explained CTC PR Manager Yoyo Hee.

“As one of the top 3D printing technology suppliers in China, CTC provides customers worldwide with comprehensive solutions encompassing resin, metal, fused deposition modeling (FDM), SLM, desktop and industry-grade. The launch of the CTC Walnut series marks a key step towards realizing our vision,” Hee continued.

We hope the launch of Zhuhai CTC Metal 3D printer will act as precedent for the launch of many more new technologies from China market for China and the world.

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Virginia Tech Researchers Develop 3D Printer for Manufacturing Copper parts

Copper 3D Printer
Copper 3D Printer

As much as we love FDM 3D Printers, we have to admit that two common issues we all might have faced are the lack in the variability of filaments and [more often than not] manufacturing defects. Yet to overcome this shortcoming scientists at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University have been working on developing a Binder Jetting 3D printer that is capable of making Copper in an efficient manner.

Copper

Copper is among the most preferred metal in the world. In the past, 3D printing a copper metal has not been an easy task since it has produced microscopic pores that, unequivocally, has antagonistic effects on the parts’ strength. But Associate Professor Christopher Williams and PhD student Yun Bai have found an effective solution to this recurring problem.

“Advances in the design of highly efficient thermal management systems are somewhat stymied by an inability to Additively Manufacture complex structures with copper material. To release this design constraint, [we] are investigating the use of Binder Jetting to process copper. This layer by layer fabrication process offers the utmost design freedom in the realization of complex geometries.” the research team explained

“What we are doing that’s different, is that we are printing copper,” Williams told the reporters. “It’s a really tricky metal to create. We are working with a process called binder jetting. In that process, you’re using an ink jet head to actually selectively jet glue into a bed of (copper) powder, one layer at a time. Once the part is created in that fashion, we then take it to a furnace to then sinter or fuse the particles together to make the metal part.”

The machine they developed therefore features an additional inkjet print-head that adds an extra layer of binder during 3D printing. “Once a layer has been printed, the powder feed piston raises, the build piston lowers, and a counter-rotating roller spreads a new layer of powder on top of the previous layer. The subsequent layer is then printed and is stitched to the previous layer by the jetted binder. The remaining loose powder in the bed supports overhanging structures and is removed with compressed air in post processing,” the team explained.

After curing the parts at higher temperature the copper is sintered to achieve the required strength and density.

Sintering process of copper

The process has been the perfect solution as it is able to fill the air pockets between the copper layers and to add to that it can make a complicated copper structures without using support material while building the parts.

“These large part sizes are possible as Binder Jetting is free from the powder bed thermal management constraints typically found in direct-metal AM processes. Furthermore, Binder Jetting systems have a relatively high throughput: a 100 nozzle print-head can create parts at up to ~200 /min,” the team of researchers told.

Therefore this discovery is set to achieve standards in metal 3D printing industry, but it might take few years for this process to be fitted in to commercial 3D printers. Nevertheless this is surely making way for further innovations in different fields.