The New Era of Additive Manufactured Orthopaedic Devices: Materials and Their Mechanical Performance

first_page settings Order Article Reprints Font Type: Arial Georgia Verdana Font Size: Aa Aa Aa Line Spacing:    Column Width:    Background: Open AccessAbstract The New Era of Additive Manufactured Orthopaedic Devices: Materials and Their Mechanical Performance † by Cristiana Fernandes 1, Daniela Trindade 1, Rui Silva 1,2,3,*, Carla Moura 1, Pedro Morouço 3,4, António Veloso 2 and Nuno Alves 1 1 Centre for Rapid and Sustainable Product Development (CDRSP), Polytechnic of Leiria, 2430 Marinha Grande, Portugal 2 Centre for the Study of Human Performance (CIPER), Faculty of Human Kinetics, Universidade de Lisboa, 1495 Cruz Quebrada Dafundo, Portugal 3 School of Education and Social Sciences (ESECS), Polytechnic of Leiria, 2411 Leiria, Portugal 4 Center for Innovative Care and Health Technology (ciTechCare), School of Health Sciences (ESSLei), Polytechnic of Leiria, 2410 Leiria, Portugal * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. † Presented at the Materiais 2022, Marinha Grande, Portugal, 10–13 April 2022. Mater. Proc. 2022, 8(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/materproc2022008006 Published: 18 May 2022 (This article belongs to the Proceedings of MATERIAIS 2022) Download Download PDF Download PDF with Cover Download XML Download Epub Versions Notes Orthoses are medical devices applied externally to improve performance in patients with difficulties and/or disabilities, designed to provide support, stabilization, and immobilization [1,2]. Specifically, customized orthoses are the most appropriate treatment for pathologies in the upper or lower limbs, offering the benefit of individualized treatment [3].When designing customized orthoses, the choice of material to be used is relevant. Important features such as strength, stiffness, durability, density, and resistance to corrosion must be considered. Most recently, the use of Additive Manufacturing appeared as a solution to build custom orthotics in an easier and faster way. For this, we evaluated the use of Fused Deposition Modelling to produce custom orthotics. Several materials commonly used in FDM were assessed, such as: acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA), Nylon 12, polycarbonate (PC), polycarbonate/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (PC-ABS), polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG), polylactic acid (PLA), thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), ULTEM 1010™, and ULTEM 9085™. Different parameters (yield stress, Young’s modulus, and elongation at break) were assessed upon compression, flexion, and tensile mechanical testing according to ASTM D–695, ISO 178, and ASTM D638-14, respectively. Overall, the results show that PLA, PETG, ULTEM 1010, and ULTEM 9085 are the most suitable materials with the best properties for the production of the proposed orthoses, ensuring their stability and performance. Author ContributionsConceptualization, C.F., D.T., R.S., C.M., P.M., A.V. and N.A.; methodology, C.F., D.T. and R.S.; validation, R.S., C.M., A.V., P.M. and N.A.; writing—original draft preparation, C.F., D.T. and R.S.; writing—review and editing, R.S., C.M., A.V., P.M. and N.A.; supervision, R.S., C.M., A.V., P.M. and N.A.; project administration, A.V. and R.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.FundingThis work was financially supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) and Centro2020 through the following Projects: UIDB/04044/2020; UIDP/04044/2020; SFRH/BD/145292/2019; Associate Laboratory ARISE LA/P/0112/2020; PAMI—ROTEIRO/0328/2013 (Nº 022158) and ReinventO (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-040021).Institutional Review Board StatementNot applicable.Informed Consent StatementNot applicable.Data Availability StatementNot applicable.Conflicts of InterestThe authors declare no conflict of interest.ReferencesAlqahtani, M.S.; Al-Tamimi, A.; Almeida, H.; Cooper, G.; Bartolo, P. A Review on the Use of Additive Manufacturing to Produce Lower Limb Orthoses. Prog. Addit. Manuf. 2020, 5, 85–94. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef][Green Version]Barrios-Muriel, J.; Romero-Sánchez, F.; Alonso-Sánchez, F.J.; Rodríguez Salgado, D. Advances in Orthotic and Prosthetic Manufacturing: A Technology Review. 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Proc. 2022, 8, 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/materproc2022008006 AMA Style Fernandes C, Trindade D, Silva R, Moura C, Morouço P, Veloso A, Alves N. The New Era of Additive Manufactured Orthopaedic Devices: Materials and Their Mechanical Performance. Materials Proceedings. 2022; 8(1):6. https://doi.org/10.3390/materproc2022008006 Chicago/Turabian Style Fernandes, Cristiana, Daniela Trindade, Rui Silva, Carla Moura, Pedro Morouço, António Veloso, and Nuno Alves. 2022. "The New Era of Additive Manufactured Orthopaedic Devices: Materials and Their Mechanical Performance" Materials Proceedings 8, no. 1: 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/materproc2022008006 Find Other Styles Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here. Article Metrics No No Article Access Statistics Multiple requests from the same IP address are counted as one view.