Title: Custom-made production of porous ceramics implants towards e-manufacturing

Authors: Teruaki Ito, Teisuke Sato

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tokushima, 2-1 Minami-Josanjima, Tokushima 770-8506, Japan. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tokushima, 2-1 Minami-Josanjima, Tokushima 770-8506, Japan

Abstract: This paper proposes a virtual design approach using digital implant model to custom-made production of porous ceramics implants, considering two major issues: design issue and material issue for tailor-made design and production for hard-tissue implants. Custom-made shape design on hard-tissue implants are required, however, appropriate design for custom-made production needs preliminary operation. Since it is not easily accepted, prefabricated implants in stead of tailor-made ones are commonly used. Porous ceramics are regarded as a suitable material for hard tissue implants, because they are compatible with bone and hard-tissue goes into the pore, which makes the bone formation with ceramics in the final stage. But their fragile features are not suitable for mechanical processing to create the complicated tailor-made shape to fit the damaged portion of bone. The paper covers the basic idea of the approach and discusses its goal towards tailor made-implants operation.

Keywords: biomedical modelling; ceramics implants; computer-aided design; CAD; virtual reality; visualisation; virtual design; e-manufacturing; porous ceramics; customisation; electronic manufacturing; tissue implants; biomedical engineering; virtual manufacturing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2007.012157

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2007 Vol.10 No.4, pp.419 - 428

Published online: 25 Jan 2007 *

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