TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose This paper aims to propose a functional methodology to produce cranial prostheses in polymeric sheet. Within the scope of rapid prototyping technologies, the single-point incremental forming (SPIF) process is used to demonstrate its capabilities to perform customized medical parts.Design/methodology/approach The methodology starts processing a patient’s computerized axial tomography (CAT) and follows with a computer-aided design and manufacture (CAD/CAM) procedure, which finally permits the successful manufacturing of a customized prosthesis for a specific cranial area.Findings The formability of a series of polymeric sheets is determined and the most restrictive material among them is selected for the fabrication of a specific partial cranial prosthesis following the required geometry. The final strain state at the outer surface of the prosthesis is analysed, showing the high potential of SPIF in manufacturing individualized cranial prostheses from polymeric sheet.Originality/value This paper proposes a complete methodology to design and manufacture polymer customized cranial prostheses from patients’ CATs using the novel SPIF technology. This is an application of a new class of materials to the manufacturing of medical prostheses by SPIF, which to this purpose has been mainly making use of metallic materials so far. Despite the use of polymers to this application is still to be validated from a medical point of view, transparent prostheses can already be of great interest in medical or engineering schools for teaching and research purposes.
VL  - 23
IS  - 4
SN  - 1355-2546
DO  - 10.1108/RPJ-02-2016-0031
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/RPJ-02-2016-0031
AU  - Centeno Gabriel
AU  - Morales-Palma Domingo
AU  - Gonzalez-Perez-Somarriba Borja
AU  - Bagudanch Isabel
AU  - Egea-Guerrero Juan José
AU  - Gonzalez-Perez Luis Miguel
AU  - García-Romeu María Luisa
AU  - Vallellano Carpóforo
PY  - 2017
Y1  - 2017/01/01
TI  - A functional methodology on the manufacturing of customized polymeric cranial prostheses from CAT using SPIF
T2  - Rapid Prototyping Journal
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 771
EP  - 780
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -