3D printing of wrist splint using low-temperature thermoplastic (LTTP) based polycaprolactone (PCL) material

Abstract

ABSTRACT Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is a 3D printing process that allows layer-wise fabrication of a component by depositing thermoplastic material from a heated nozzle. The splints fabricated using the FDM technique should be mouldable so that they can easily be fitted on the body part. However, for some of the biomedical devices where remoulding is required, it cannot be fulfilled by the traditional polymer filaments used in the FDM process. Therefore, Low-Temperature Thermoplastic (LTTP) materials, having lower activation temperatures, can be used for such applications. Polycaprolactone (PCL) is a biocompatible LTTP material used in the FDM process that can be easily mouldable. In the present work, a wrist splint is fabricated using PCL filament by the FDM process. A detailed study of the influence of three FDM processing conditions viz. infill density, layer height and raster angle on the compressive properties is carried out to get the optimised values of the FDM processing parameters. The wrist splint has been fabricated using the optimised values of FDM parameters. The 3D printed wrist splint is found to fit comfortably with the user and it provides a suitable fit to immobilise an injured arm.