Jaw strength: something to chew on from additive manufacturing

As a design tool, rapid prototyping has proved invaluable to engineers wishing to visualise a part in 3D before setting about a full production run or deciding that further improvements can be made.

From its beginnings in the mid-1980s, the process that includes selective laser sintering (SLS), stereolithography (SLA) and fused deposition modelling (FDM) has now been joined by additive manufacturing (AM). Normally used to manufacture parts with complex geometries, AM was employed in 2011 to create a part designed to significantly improve a woman’s quality of life.

Aged 83, the unnamed Dutch woman became the world’s first recipient of a patient-specific lower jaw made from titanium using AM. She needed the fixture because progressive osteomyelitis — an acute inflammatory condition within bone, bone marrow and surrounding soft tissue — had developed as the result of a tumour.

Carsten Engel, a biomedical engineer from Belgian technological research centre Sirris, consulted and advised Layerwise, the company that built the part using AM, and Xilloc for the regulatory aspects of the implant design.