Investigations on hardness of investment-casted implants fabricated after vapour smoothing of FDM replicas

Abstract

Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is one of the additive manufacturing processes, which is used to produce three-dimensional functional and non-functional prototypes. This process is commercially acceptable for producing parts with different materials (thermoplastic, wax, etc.), which can be formed into desired shape and can be used as consumable pattern in investment casting (IC) process. The IC process has been established for production of difficult to made parts with high accuracy and finish. By combining both these novel processes, the researchers are serving the field of medicine to satisfy the needs of society. The vapour smoothing is one of the recently developed surface finishing techniques, which has potential to draw remarkable results to improve the quality of FDM replicas and support the IC process to enhance the properties of casted parts. So, in this paper an attempt has been made to develop a biomedical implant by combining these three processes. Also the effects of controlling parameters of combined processes on the hardness and microstructure of the casted implants have been investigated.