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May 9, 2024 by Newsdesk

As the demand for patient-specific implants continues to grow beyond the ability of manufacturers to keep up, healthcare leaders like Mayo Clinic and the U.S. Veterans Administration are busy making plans to establish their own facilities and start 3D printing metal implants on-site.

Currently, the most common healthcare use cases for additive manufacturing are developing anatomical models to help patients understand their upcoming procedures and customizing surgical instrumentation.

All signs point to a future in which healthcare organizations will be manufacturing devices at the point of care (POC). That means that hospitals will soon be the newest members of the medical device manufacturing (MDM) industry, a proposition with real institutional and infrastructure challenges. “After all, this is not what healthcare facilities are really set up for,” says Severine Valdant, chief commercial officer for QuesTek Innovations, a leading materials engineering firm, and a founding member of the AddUp medical advisory board. “It takes a different way of thinking for a hospital.”

The AddUp Medical Advisory Board was established in 2023 in order to provide the company with nonbiased, holistic perspectives on the application of metal 3D printing technologies for healthcare. Severine Valdant provides her unique perspective as a leader in the development of medical devices and 3D printing. Before joining QuesTek, she led the transformation of Oxford Performance Materials into an additive manufacturing leader, helping it become the first company to receive FDA approvals for 3D printed polymeric implants.

Key stakeholders recognize value of 3D printing

Even with the challenges that additive manufacturing brings for healthcare organizations hoping to leverage 3D printing at the point of care, the concept is gaining widespread acceptance among healthcare executives and other key stakeholders.

OEMs are making big advances. “If printer manufacturers can deliver an all-in-one solution, it makes it much less difficult to implement AM at the point of care and we’re not that far away,” says Valdant. The good news is that companies like AddUp are bringing new printers to the marketplace that can be easily integrated with other established systems and processes.

The FDA is on board. “In fact, they see a lot of value in POC manufacturing and they’re working with players on the healthcare and OEM side to figure out what regulations or guidelines are needed to make it happen.”

Surgeons are enthusiastic about the possibilities. “I’ve talked to a lot of them and they’re pretty excited about the etools, but we need to be careful that they don’t stop being doctors and become engineers,” Valdant continues.
Administrators play a key role. “They’re the big decision makers. If we bring AM to the point of care, they need to see a good ROI.”

Future Applications

The future of healthcare is personalized medicine and POC manufacturing will play an important role. We expect that there are many new uses cases on the horizon that will push the boundaries of the technology and broaden its possibilities. These include advances in the just-in-time manufacture of single-use, procedure- and patient-specific instrumentation to replace traditional systems at affordable costs.

The sweet spot for future applications of POC AM will be procedures for which there is not a convenient or effective off-the-shelf implant option—including complex surgeries for knee, hip, and pelvis reconstructions; spine surgeries; and tumor modeling for cancer patients.

In addition, AI and machine learning will soon enable the automation of workflows and speed production of patient-specific implants, improving development times from as long as 18 months to a matter of days. This is expected to improve patient outcomes exponentially, while also reducing operative times and the need for additional corrective surgeries.

The Right OEM

POC manufacturing will need to be an effective partnership between healthcare facility and OEM. “I think we’re a lot further ahead than we were 10 years ago, because collaboration between the two is happening,” Valdant continues. “With our deep knowledge of the medical market and a solution that is very efficient and integrated, AddUp will be a great partner on the OEM side.”

October 5, 2023 by AddUp

As Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) technology matures, its capabilities meet the needs of more and more industries. One of the faster growing sectors is Additive’s involvement in Aluminum Die Casting. Here, we explore how improvements made in Surface Finish can service the Die Casting industry.

Tooling has an important purpose: to create high-quality end use parts. While the GD&T minutia of the final part may be pored over for months, less attention is paid to the tools themselves, as long as they can get the job done. In an industry where technology and workflow has been stable, Additive Manufacturing has to showcase clear-cut advantages to disrupt the tooling space. Whereas traditional manufacturing has handled toolmaking with relative ease, designers using AM will need to examine each application with a fine-toothed comb to best exhibit how AM can push the boundaries of tool performance. This is made more challenging by the limited material portfolios of Powder Bed Fusion (which are expanding!), meaning we aren’t always replacing an existing tool with a matching material. Improving molds via the design freedoms awarded by 3D Printing is not enough, the new tools must be optimized for surface finish as well.

Why care about surface finish?

Surface finish plays a key role in wear performance of the tool and reducing the post-processing burdens of the part and/or tool. Let’s dive into what this means for the Aluminum Die Casting industry:

Wear Performance: One of the most basic metrics for tools – how long do they last before they need to be retouched or replaced? Tool life can be measured in number of shots, total parts produced, time spent on an active production line, or in various other ways. Clearly, it is advantageous for molds and tools to last longer, as the manufacturer would like to spend as little time making tools and instead make the revenue-producing parts. Surface finish is critical for achieving best possible wear performance, as wear failures often start as small imperfections on the surface of the tool itself. Better surface finish means the part-mold interaction takes place at a smoother area with smaller stress concentrators, and therefore working for longer before needing to be replaced.

Sometimes it is acceptable to use an as-printed surface in a tool, but some applications require a finish that can’t be achieved with 3D Printing. In Die Casting, for example, molds are normally shot-peened or bathed in chemicals before use. The better the surface finish these molds can start with, the less time they spend being processed before use. By achieving a better out-of-the-box surface, you’re saving on time and resources needed to create a final product.

Surface finish is a key area of focus for Powder Bed Fusion, and more opportunities will present themselves to the industry once strides are made in this field. AddUp is leading this pursuit by implementing a combination of a Roller Recoater and fine powder in the FormUp 350. Only a roller is capable of handling fine powders (ie 5-25um) without them clumping together. The finer media paired with a compacted powder bed creates a consistent, better controlled melt, leaving behind as-printed surface finishes as smooth as 3um Ra. Attaining these finishes without sacrificing productivity is a huge step towards more widespread comprehension of Powder Bed Fusion as a viable production tool, including the tooling industry.

August 31, 2023 by AddUp

Development of new materials to be utilized with AM technology is a key step in fully realizing the potential AM has to offer.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a revolutionary manufacturing technique that will reshape the future manufacturing sector. Design freedom, waste reduction and mass customization are some of the benefits of AM. Although AM technology may not be used by all manufacturers today, the potential ahead is massive. Development of new materials to be utilized with AM technology is a key step in fully realizing the potential AM has to offer.

In the AM technology evolution process, it is necessary to develop melting parameters for existing standard alloys and newly designed alloys so that the material properties meet or exceed conventional manufacturing techniques such as casting, forging, rolling and machining, etc.

In addition to material development, appropriate qualification is necessary to fabricate critical components for medical, aerospace and tooling applications. Material qualification can be very time-consuming and expensive depending on the application or industry. The first step in this process is establishing baseline melting parameters in which sufficient data needs to be collected to demonstrate that the material will function as required.

Material development for metal AM is a complex process that requires a thorough understanding of melting and re-solidification temperatures and corresponding microstructures. Melting strategies can have several specific focuses, such as part quality, productivity, and feature specifics, so a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not feasible. For application-specific product development the customer’s use case must be kept in mind for material development from start to finish.

The addition of new materials to the existing catalog requires rigorous testing and analysis to ensure that the printed part meets the quality requirements. This requires an immense amount of work in defining and executing the printing, testing and analysis protocols. This blog will explore some of the important considerations in melting parameters development.

Feedstock Properties

Feedstock material selection is the first and foremost important step in the metal AM process. Key attributes of metal powder such as shape, size, flowability and chemical composition contribute to achieving high-quality parts. So, it is important to choose the correct powder depending on the required functionality of the part.

Melt Pool Dimensions

This aspect of development measures the physical characteristics of a single bead pass, as well as the melt pool dimensions of each bead. A statistically driven experimental approach combined with simulation analyses can be utilized in identifying the primary melting parameters to obtain the appropriate melt pool dimensions to achieve the required solid densities.

Solid Part Density

Solid part density is a measure of porosity inside of a printed part and builds off dialing in single beads by changing how they are printed next to each other. Layer thickness and laser scanning rotation angles significantly impact how these melting passes interact with each other. This directly impacts the density and microstructures of the printed parts. Solid part density can be tested with techniques such as metallography or MicroCT scan.

Material Performance

Printed material performance must be tested extensively when developing new melting parameters. This includes physical and mechanical data collection from various tests. In addition, checking for warpage and any other dimensional deviation of the printed part before and after post-thermal conditions is necessary. This helps in understanding the byproducts of internal stresses and the efficacy of post-thermal conditions on part geometry.

This preliminary dimensional, density, surface finish and tensile data validate the quality of the melting strategy before moving to an expensive application specific qualification process.

Specific Use-Case Optimization

While optimized baseline melting parameters are necessary to print most parts, if there are specific quality requirements extra measures need to be taken. It is critical to incorporate part production/quality requirements such as surface finish, productivity, and feature resolution, etc. from the inception of the development.

The AddUp Difference

AddUp’s catalog of materials includes a diverse mix of different alloys of steel, titanium, aluminum, Inconel, and more. We continuously work on developing and optimizing melting parameters for new materials to fit the needs of the industry. AddUp utilizes a fully data-driven approach and application specific inputs in developing new materials or changes to the existing melting strategies. With our expert materials engineering team combined with in-house testing capabilities, we can produce melting strategies for new or existing materials quickly and efficiently. In this process we are open to collaborating with industry partners and academic researchers.

Check out this video showcasing some of our material development process for Zeda in 17-4 PH Stainless Steel at our AddUp Solution Center in Cincinnati, OH.

Learn more about the capabilities of the FormUp 350.

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