Direct Ink Writing of Porous Titanium Acetabular Cups

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Valentin, Naima

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2022

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Thesis

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3D printing , acetabular cup , direct ink writing , titanium

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Abstract

Acetabular cups, part of a hip prosthesis that sits against the bone in the hip joint are one of the most important implants in total hip arthroplasty. Acetabular cups are usually made from titanium alloys with high porosity and suitable mechanical properties. Traditionally, acetabular cups have been made using subtractive manufacturing techniques, which are difficult to create porous microstructures and make part customization costly and time-consuming. Metal 3D printing techniques have more recently been introduced to the manufacturing of acetabular cups, however, current three-dimensional (3D) printing approaches to fabricate customized acetabular cups have some inevitable complications such as high cost and energy consumption, residual thermal stress, and relatively low efficiency. In this work, a direct ink writing method has been investigated to print a cup structure at room temperature which has been followed by a multi-step heat treatment to form microscale porous structures within the acetabular cup. The method is facilitated by the development of a self-supporting titanium-6 aluminum-4 vanadium (Ti64) ink which is composed of Ti64 particles, bentonite yield-stress additive, ultraviolet (UV) curable polymer, and photo-initiator. The effects of Ti64 and bentonite concentrations on the rheological properties and printability of inks have been systematically investigated. Moreover, the printing conditions, geometrical limitations, and maximum curing depth have been explored. Finally, some complex 3D structures, including lattices with different gap distances, a honeycomb with a well-defined shape, and an acetabular cup with uniformly distributed micropores, have been successfully printed/fabricated to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States

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