Structural design optimization of knee replacement implants for Additive Manufacturing

Article describes study focused on proposing a setup of a proper methodology for the rapid development of optimized surgical implants

Process Chain for the Fabrication of a Custom 3D Barrier for Guided Bone Regeneration

Guided Bone Regeneration (GBR) is a surgical procedure that consists in the use of barrier membranes to cover bone defects caused by trauma, periodontal disease and other pathologies. These barriers allow the proliferation of bone cells, and prevent the invasion of the defect by non-osteogenic cells (connective and epithelium) in patients with a lack of horizontal and/or vertical bone. This process is essential for the successful dental implant placement. Additive manufacturing (AM) is emerging as an important tool for biomedical applications, especially for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. This paper proposes a process chain for the fabrication of a custom barrier from cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) as Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) files obtained from a patient with vertical bone resorption of the anterior maxilla.DICOM files have been processed with Invesalius 3.0 to obtain the tridimensional (3D) anatomy of the region of interest. This 3D model was cleaned, fixed, and smoothed. The prototyped model of the patient’s bone defect was further processed in Rhinoceros to offer a 3D architecture for cell growth. To obtain information of the thermal and mechanical properties a finite element method (FEM) was assessed. The prototype obtained was produced with fused deposition modeling (FDM) an additive manufacturing technology

4to. Congreso Internacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación para la Sociedad. Memoria académica

Este volumen acoge la memoria académica de la Cuarta edición del Congreso Internacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación para la Sociedad, CITIS 2017, desarrollado entre el 29 de noviembre y el 1 de diciembre de 2017 y organizado por la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (UPS) en su sede de Guayaquil. El Congreso ofreció un espacio para la presentación, difusión e intercambio de importantes investigaciones nacionales e internacionales ante la comunidad universitaria que se dio cita en el encuentro. El uso de herramientas tecnológicas para la gestión de los trabajos de investigación como la plataforma Open Conference Systems y la web de presentación del Congreso http://citis.blog.ups.edu.ec/, hicieron de CITIS 2017 un verdadero referente entre los congresos que se desarrollaron en el país. La preocupación de nuestra Universidad, de presentar espacios que ayuden a generar nuevos y mejores cambios en la dimensión humana y social de nuestro entorno, hace que se persiga en cada edición del evento la presentación de trabajos con calidad creciente en cuanto a su producción científica. Quienes estuvimos al frente de la organización, dejamos plasmado en estas memorias académicas el intenso y prolífico trabajo de los días de realización del Congreso Internacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación para la Sociedad al alcance de todos y todas

Process Chain for the Fabrication of a Custom 3D Barrier for Guided Bone Regeneration

Guided Bone Regeneration (GBR) is a surgical procedure that consists in the use of barrier membranes to cover bone defects caused by trauma, periodontal disease and other pathologies. These barriers allow the proliferation of bone cells, and prevent the invasion of the defect by non-osteogenic cells (connective and epithelium) in patients with a lack of horizontal and/or vertical bone. This process is essential for the successful dental implant placement. Additive manufacturing (AM) is emerging as an important tool for biomedical applications, especially for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. This paper proposes a process chain for the fabrication of a custom barrier from cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) as Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) files obtained from a patient with vertical bone resorption of the anterior maxilla. DICOM files have been processed with Invesalius 3.0 to obtain the tridimensional (3D) anatomy of the region of interest. This 3D model was cleaned, fixed, and smoothed. The prototyped model of the patient's bone defect was further processed in Rhinoceros to offer a 3D architecture for cell growth. To obtain information of the thermal and mechanical properties a finite element method (FEM) was assessed. The prototype obtained was produced with fused deposition modeling (FDM) an additive manufacturing technology. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V

Alginate/Gelatin Hydrogels Reinforced with TiO2 and β-TCP Fabricated by Microextrusion-based Printing for Tissue Regeneration

Three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies have become an attractive manufacturing process to fabricate scaffolds in tissue engineering. Recent research has focused on the fabrication of alginate complex shaped structures that closely mimic biological organs or tissues. Alginates can be effectively manufactured into porous three-dimensional networks for tissue engineering applications. However, the structure, mechanical properties, and shape fidelity of 3D-printed alginate hydrogels used for preparing tissue-engineered scaffolds is difficult to control. In this work, the use of alginate/gelatin hydrogels reinforced with TiO2 and β-tricalcium phosphate was studied to tailor the mechanical properties of 3D-printed hydrogels. The hydrogels reinforced with TiO2 and β-TCP showed enhanced mechanical properties up to 20 MPa of elastic modulus. Furthermore, the pores of the crosslinked printed structures were measured with an average pore size of 200 μm. Additionally, it was found that as more layers of the design were printed, there was an increase of the line width of the bottom layers due to its viscous deformation. Shrinkage of the design when the hydrogel is crosslinked and freeze dried was also measured and found to be up to 27% from the printed design. Overall, the proposed approach enabled fabrication of 3D-printed alginate scaffolds with adequate physical properties for tissue engineering applications

E-Skin Development and Prototyping via Soft Tooling and Composites with Silicone Rubber and Carbon Nanotubes

The strategy of embedding conductive materials on polymeric matrices has produced functional and wearable artificial electronic skin prototypes capable of transduction signals, such as pressure, force, humidity, or temperature. However, these prototypes are expensive and cover small areas. This study proposes a more affordable manufacturing strategy for manufacturing conductive layers with 6 × 6 matrix micropatterns of RTV-2 silicone rubber and Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNT). A novel mold with two cavities and two different micropatterns was designed and tested as a proof-of-concept using Low-Force Stereolithography-based additive manufacturing (AM). The effect SWCNT concentrations (3 wt.%, 4 wt.%, and 5 wt.%) on the mechanical properties were characterized by quasi-static axial deformation tests, which allowed them to stretch up to ~160%. The elastomeric soft material’s hysteresis energy (Mullin’s effect) was fitted using the Ogden–Roxburgh model and the Nelder–Mead algorithm. The assessment showed that the resulting multilayer material exhibits high flexibility and high conductivity (surface resistivity ~7.97 × 104 Ω/sq) and that robust soft tooling can be used for other devices

Reinforcement of Alginate-Gelatin Hydrogels with Bioceramics for Biomedical Applications: A Comparative Study

This study states the preparation of novel ink with potential use for bone and cartilage tissue restoration. 3Dprint manufacturing allows customizing prostheses and complex morphologies of any traumatism. The quest for bioinks that increase the restoration rate based on printable polymers is a need. This study is focused on main steps, the synthesis of two bioceramic materials as WO3 and Na2Ti6O13, its integration into a biopolymeric-base matrix of Alginate and Gelatin to support the particles in a complete scaffold to trigger the potential nucleation of crystals of calcium phosphates, and its comparative study with independent systems of formulations with bioceramic particles as Al2O3, TiO2, and ZrO2. FT-IR and SEM studies result in hydroxyapatite’s potential nucleation, which can generate bone or cartilage tissue regeneration systems with low or null cytotoxicity. These composites were tested by cell culture techniques to assess their biocompatibility. Moreover, the reinforcement was compared individually by mechanical tests with higher results on synthesized materials Na2Ti6O13 with 35 kPa and WO3 with 63 kPa. Finally, the integration of these composite materials formulated by Alginate/Gelatin and bioceramic has been characterized as functional for further manufacturing with the aid of novel biofabrication techniques such as 3D printing

Parametric Modeling of Biomimetic Cortical Bone Microstructure for Additive Manufacturing

In this work we present a novel algorithm for generating in-silico biomimetic models of a cortical bone microstructure towards manufacturing biomimetic bone via additive manufacturing. The software provides a tool for physicians or biomedical engineers to develop models of cortical bone that include the inherent complexity of the microstructure. The correspondence of the produced virtual prototypes with natural bone tissue was assessed experimentally employing Digital Light Processing (DLP) of a thermoset polymer resin to recreate healthy and osteoporotic bone tissue microstructure. The proposed tool was successfully implemented to develop cortical bone structure based on osteon density, cement line thickness, and the Haversian and Volkmann channels to produce a user-designated bone porosity that matches within values reported from literature for these types of tissues. Characterization of the specimens using a Scanning Electron Microscopy with Focused Ion Beam (SEM/FIB) and Computer Tomography (CT) revealed that the manufacturability of intricated virtual prototype is possible for scaled-up versions of the tissue. Modeling based on the density, inclination and size range of the osteon and Haversian and Volkmann´s canals granted the development of a dynamic in-silico porosity (13.37–21.49%) that matches with models of healthy and osteoporotic bone. Correspondence of the designed porosity with the manufactured assessment (5.79–16.16%) shows that the introduced methodology is a step towards the development of more refined and lifelike porous structures such as cortical bone. Further research is required for validation of the proposed methodology model of the real bone tissue and as a patient-specific customization tool of synthetic bone