Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

The over goal of this research is to develop a manufacturing strategy that allows to cost-effectively design and produce patient specific plastic implants for musculoskeletal conditions within a hospital. Conventional manufacturing poses too many design restrictions and would not be cost-effective for this purpose and therefore our research focuses on 3D printing. Several 3D printing technologies exist but due to its simplicity material extrusion 3D printing is an attractive technology. Here, a plastic filament is supplied to an extrusion nozzle which is heated to a semi-liquid state. The semi-molten plastic is then extruded through the nozzle and laid down in layers. The position of the nozzle is controlled with a numerically controlled mechanism that follows the shape of the desired part. The simplicity of this manufacturing technology makes it very accessible and allows to print a wide variety of plastics in an office setting. However, this 3D printing technology has been developed to create prototypes and not functional parts and therefore has several limitations. Therefore, our short term goal is to investigate and enhance this plastic extrusion based 3D printing technology to ensure that strong and reliable implants and other plastic parts can be manufactured. In addition to extensive material testing, we will generate numerical models, which allow to predict the long term performance and strength of the printed implants and parts to ensure safety and reliability. With an innovative approach we will enhance the printing process and address some of its limitations, which will further increase reliability and strength of the printed implants and parts. We will also include continuous carbon fiber into the printing process resulting in very stiff and strong parts that can be used in many other industries, including aerospace.
We envision a future where custom implants are designed directly by the surgeons based on medical imaging data and then printed and sterilizes in the hospital. These custom implants will enhance the surgical outcomes, and therefore reducing the number of revision surgeries and together with substantially reduced implant costs will significantly reduce health care costs for these procedures. Although the proposed research is only the first step towards this goal and many regulatory hurdles need to be overcome, the knowledge gained from this research can be immediately applied for other, less regulated industries. Companies can design and produce custom products and quickly, manufacture innovative products and respond to fast developing industries. There would be no need to store parts and products and they can be manufactured where needed, which will decrease costs and the environmental food print.