Laboratory for Micro/Nano Integration

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Rapid Tooling Molds for Thermoformed Socket

Recent Work

 

Prosthetics and orthotics are often formed by creating casts of  the patient’s limb and creating plaster molds from the casts.  After some adjustments, thermoplastics are formed over the molds.  

 

This work exams the application of the 3D Printing process commercialized by ZCorp for rapid tooling in the medical device industry.  With some modifications to the post-processing, the 3D printed parts can achieve similar properties to the traditional plaster molds.  Future work will assess the system and logistical benefits to

Schematic of Basic 3D Printing Process

Overview

3D printing can create nearly arbitrary 3D shapes directly from computer models.  Traditionally, these have been used primarily for appearance models.  However, these processes can also be used to directly manufacture parts (rapid manufacturing) or to manufacture tooling for the parts. 

Nanoparticle treatments reduced the deformation of the top bar more than 95% relative to the untreated bar (bottom).