Investigations for modelling hardness of biomedical implant during replication of FDM-based patterns by vacuum moulding

• DOI: 10.1007/s12046-017-0604-1
• Publication Date: 2019-12-14T23:44:01Z
• Authors: Rupinder Singh; Gurinder Singh
• Keywords: Replication

In the present work, effort has been made for modelling the microhardness of biomedical implant prepared by combining fused deposition modelling, vacuum moulding and stir casting (SC) process. A dynamic condylar screw (DCS) plate was selected as a real ‘3D’ biomedical implant for this case study. The DCS plate, made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene material, was fabricated as a master pattern by fused deposition modelling. After preparation of the master pattern, the mould cavity was fabricated by the vacuum moulding process. Finally a metal–matrix composite of Al and Al2O3 prepared by SC process has been poured in the vacuum mould for fabrication of DCS plate. This study outlines the replication procedure of DCS plate in detail from the master pattern to final product. The contribution of the paper is towards finding out the effect and optimum values of three different process parameters (namely: percentage composition of Al and Al2O3, vacuum pressure and grain size of silica) towards microhardness of the DCS plate manufactured by the combined process.