With the advancements in 3D printing, there are more industries opting to use 3D printing as an alternative manufacturing method to fabricate their parts. One such industry is the medical industry and some of the parts involved are screw implants, dental molds and prosthetics.
Prosthetics are good parts to fabricate using 3D printing for the following reasons:
- Prototyping is quick and affordable, allowing users to test fit a variety of prosthetics
- It is customizable to suit the requirements of the user
- Multi material can be used. E.g. Titanium for strength and lightweight, TPU for flexibility
- Design and topological optimisation can be used to light weight the prosthetics
All these reasons and with increasing variety of materials, there will be certainly more usage of 3D printing in the medical industry.