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Customized cranial implant manufactured by incremental sheet forming using a biocompatible polymer

Isabel Bagudanch (Department of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Construction, Universitat de Girona, Girona, Spain)
María Luisa García-Romeu (Department of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Construction, Universitat de Girona, Girona, Spain)
Ines Ferrer (Department of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Construction, Universitat de Girona, Girona, Spain)
Joaquim Ciurana (Department of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Construction, Universitat de Girona, Girona, Spain)

Rapid Prototyping Journal

ISSN: 1355-2546

Article publication date: 2 January 2018

584

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of incremental sheet forming (ISF), using the most common variants, single-point incremental forming (SPIF) and two-point incremental forming (TPIF), to produce prototypes of customized cranial implants using a biocompatible polymer (ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene, UHMWPE), ensuring an appropriate geometric accuracy and cost.

Design/methodology/approach

The cranial implant is designed based on computerized tomographies (CT) of the patient, converting them into a 3D model using the software InVesalius. To generate the toolpath for the forming operation computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software is used. Once the cranial implant is manufactured, a 3D scanning system is used to determine the geometric deviation between the real part and the initial design.

Findings

The results corroborate that it is possible to successfully manufacture a customized cranial implant using ISF, being able to improve the geometric accuracy using the TPIF variant with a negative die.

Originality/value

This paper is one of the first research works in which a customized cranial implant is successfully manufactured using a flexible technology, ISF and a biocompatible polymer. The use of polymeric implants in cranioplasty is advantageous because of their lightweight, low heat conductivity and mechanical properties similar to bone. Furthermore, the cost of the implant has been calculated considering not only the raw materials and manufacturing time but also the environmental impact, revealing that it is a cheap process with a low lead-time.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the University of Girona (MPCUdG2016/036), the Spanish Ministry (DPI2016-77156-R). The first author gratefully acknowledges the support from the Spanish grant FPU12/05402. The authors would also like to thank the collaboration of Centro de Tecnologia de Informação Renato Archer and the work of Adrià Garcia.

Citation

Bagudanch, I., García-Romeu, M.L., Ferrer, I. and Ciurana, J. (2018), "Customized cranial implant manufactured by incremental sheet forming using a biocompatible polymer", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 120-129. https://doi.org/10.1108/RPJ-06-2016-0089

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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