Applications for Additive Manufacturing Techniques and Material Selection Investigations for Fabrication of Prosthetic and Orthotic Devices

Applications of additive manufacturing techniques have received tremendous attention worldwide in different manufacturing sectors including medical sector. The techniques fabricate products layer-by-layer additive-based fabrication process guided through CAD based designed product model. This has given the designers much more design freedom and have minimized the product design limitations. The techniques have shown the advantage of production of custom-made complex designed products with higher accuracy and repeatability. In medical sector for manufacturing of prosthetics and orthotics devices and rehabilitation aids, these techniques have the optimum solution for manufacturing of the patient-specific and individual anatomy fit based devices and satisfy customization requirements. In medical sector foot orthosis is medical device prescribed in the prosthetics and orthotics practices for the treatment of foot related diseases. In this research for the fabrication of custom-made foot orthosis, six of the well-established commercially additive manufacturing techniques were used. The research also investigates the material selection and different properties of the materials used in different additive manufacturing techniques and examines the different material properties including mechanical properties, strength, toughness, and stiffness. The goal is to identify the optimal materials that with stand during operational phase of the custom-made devices with patient and enhance the product durability and improve overall quality of life of the patients while supporting sustainable practices and meeting regulatory requirements of the AM based produced devices and aids.