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]]>The mOne I read about recently, on the tinyhousetalk.com website, is 37 square metres (400-square feet). It is as large as some studio apartments found in cities like Paris and New York. The finishes and features, however, put those city studios to shame.
All models are factory-manufactured using 3D printing and can be delivered to a site for setup in a single day.
The internal features and walls are 3D-printed. The furniture, including a couch that becomes a Murphy bed, along with shelves and cupboards are also 3D-printed. The flexibility of the unit’s internal space produces an open floor plan, giving the mOne a feel of spaciousness.
Comfortable living features include a drop-down cinema-sized projection system for large-scale home entertainment. The fully enclosed hotel-quality bathroom includes a shower, toilet and sink. Meanwhile, a kitchen with oven, microwave, coffee maker, refrigerator, LED-lit cabinetry and shelves, and a stainless steel sink lie hidden behind closet doors so that the kitchen can disappear when not in use. Both the bathroom and kitchen share a common wall.
Haus.me describes the mOne as suitable for sleeping up to 5, although I think that refers to the largest model. The unit featured on tinyhousetalk.com is likely best suited for a solo act, or for two at most.
When I recently researched an article that appeared on this site describing the current ability to 3D-print entire communities, I came across the mOne. Unlike the on-site 3D-printed homes I described in that article, this tiny house is factory-manufactured.
Its material is 3D-printed composite polymer, featuring transparent sections that offer floor-to-ceiling panoramic views. It is manufactured in one piece with no wall framing required.
That means everything is prebuilt, including light fixtures, plumbing, and venting. Kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures are added.
Power to the home comes from rooftop solar panels with battery backup. Water for internal use is collected by a built-in atmospheric condenser. A HEPA filter keeps the internal air fresh. Wastewater gets fully recycled, meaning no need for a septic tank. All environmental and energy issues are managed by built-in Smart Home software.
mOne claims it’s autonomous from Day One, requiring no pre-built external infrastructure. As a result, it can be up and running within a day of delivery.
mOne pricing starts at US$ 89,990 for the smallest model. The price of the configuration featured on the tinyhomes website was $499,990. The largest model costs over a million. A YouTube video provides a guided tour of a 37-square-metre model.
If you can drop a standalone 3D-printed home on a lot ready to go in a day, think of other solutions these types of factory builds can deliver.
When 3D printing started, it was seen as a technology for hobbyists and prototyping. Today it is being used to print objects as small as medical devices and as large as wind-turbine blades.
Now, imagine using the Haus.me technology to build other types of structural shells that can become classrooms, shops, pavilions, field hospitals, medical clinics, military barracks, disaster-relief shelters, bridges, depots and storage tanks, flood control structures, and more.
Designs can be endless, software-created, factory-built, and fully equipped. Haus.me is opening a door to an as-yet untapped goldmine where 3D-printing can take us.
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]]>The post Novel 3D Printing And Circular Economic Processes Are Key Differentiators For Europe’s Airbus appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>In this posting, she writes about Airbus, the aerospace rival to Boeing, and its use of 3D printing, material reuse and other circular economic principles to manufacture its aircraft. Take it away, Tarina.
Airbus is the largest aeronautics and space company in Europe. With more than 180 sites worldwide and boasting over five decades of aerospace expertise, it is utilizing a new 3D printing technology to set sustainability standards. Airbus is embracing circular processes to optimize its resource use and minimize waste when it comes to metals, many of which are infinitely recyclable and retain their quality throughout their lifespan.
To achieve Airbus’ sustainability goals, it has focused on two critical metals, aluminum and titanium, working with raw material suppliers, component manufacturers, recycling specialists, and others within the aeronautical industry. It is also applying circular economic principles to its manufacturing processes. These efforts represent a strong commitment to battling global warming and waste.
Aluminum and titanium are used widely in the manufacturing of aircraft.
Titanium, on average, makes up 14% of the material found in every Airbus aircraft. Various grades of the metal are used for a wide variety of components. The most common is Grade 5 titanium alloy, which provides high strength, light weight, good corrosion resistance, and weldability. Lower grades, such as 2, 3, and 4, are also used for their strength and anti-corrosive qualities. Other alloy grades, such as 9, are used for tubing, hydraulics, and landing gear components.
Aluminum alloys account for even more in aircraft production, comprising 20% of the total. Alloys are grouped in the following categories: 2xxx, 6xxx, and 7xxx.
The high use of titanium and aluminum in Airbus aircraft has been the focus of the company as it seeks innovative ways to reduce these metals’ carbon footprint. Airbus has crafted a goal embracing “Ten Rs,” which expands on the idea of the reuse, reduce, and recycle philosophy.
The Ten Rs include:
3D printing is not new to manufacturers. Airbus is using two specific types of 3D printing technologies called Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM) to build aircraft parts out of titanium, with minimal waste. Instead of creating parts using larger amounts of material and milling them down, producing excess scrap, ALM provides precision manufacturing using only the precise amount of material needed.
The first of these 3D technologies is Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) uses laser beams to melt powdered titanium into a desired shape. This technology can be used to create layers as thin as 0.1 millimetres. A good example of how PBF gets used is in the creation of the 32 door latch shafts required for each A350 aircraft. Before PBF, latch shafts were made from ten different parts that then had to be assembled. The PBF replacement is a single integrated part that weighs 45% less than its predecessor. Considering weight is critical in any aircraft, this one change saves up to 126,000 kilograms of CO2 emissions from less fuel being used over a 20-year average aircraft lifespan.
The second 3D printing technology is Directed-Energy Deposition (DED), which involves creating large parts by using a laser to melt titanium wire and then depositing it in place to create a semi-finished “near net shape” part that needs further machining before installation. With DED, teams can forge parts faster and relieve pressure on titanium supply chains.
Why is reusing and repurposing aluminum used in airframe manufacturing so important? Recycled aluminum requires only 5% of the energy needed for primary production.
That’s why Airbus is working with two aluminum suppliers, Constellium and Novelis, to create a closed-loop recycling process for aluminum scrap. The project has involved onboarding machinists who produce aluminum scrap, as well as scrap dealers and melters.
A subsidiary of Airbus called Tarmac Aerosave is partnering with Constellium to recycle fuselages into new aluminum alloys that can be used in future aerospace applications.
In an industry often defined by precision, speed, and scale, it’s refreshing to see a company like Airbus slowing down to ask the bigger questions, about how things are made, where materials come from, and what happens to them when their job is done.
By weaving sustainability into the very fabric of its design and production processes, Airbus is showing that cutting-edge technology doesn’t have to come at the planet’s expense. Whether it’s reimagining aircraft parts through 3D printing or giving aluminum scrap a second life, the truth is, airplanes are better, but what’s even more powerful is the mindset that is creating them, one that embraces circular thinking with the potential to spark change far beyond the aviation industry.
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]]>The post I Had Knee Replacement Surgery in 2020 But Could 3D Bioprinting Do The Job In The Future? appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>Before agreeing to knee replacement, I had researched stem cell cartilage replacement therapy to the nth degree but that option eluded me. Although delayed and under total isolation conditions the operation was performed on July 15, 2020. Two days later I was home to recover and rehab with a physiotherapist who virtually visited me over Zoom as I exercised my way back to full mobility without a walker or cane in three months.
The osteoarthritis that caused my left knee so much grief and pain is a thing of the past now, but my interest in less invasive and minimal surgical knee interventions remains high. I have osteoarthritis in my right knee but no pain so I assume I can live with that condition for many more years. Should I need to do something about it, there is the promise coming from a four-year joint project in Germany involving the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research and the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg BTU. The research is focused on producing personalized 3D-printed personalized cartilage-cell-embedded implants to restore knee function.
Before my knee operation, I had asked my surgeon why cartilage replacement therapy had yet to evolve for use in treating bum knees. He laughed about what the prospect of developing an alternative to surgery would do to his job but also described the considerable challenges the research had yet to resolve.
I mentioned I had been following work being done in Germany, Chicago, and at the Mayo Clinic. The latter has the RECLAIM Project which was at the time still at its earliest stages. RECLAIM stands for Recycled CartiLage Auto/allo IMplantation and it remains a work in progress.
My surgeon told me that growing personalized cartilage cells wasn’t the problem. The challenge was being able to put the cells in the right place and have them adhere and grow to fit the exact shape of the joint. That’s when he brought up the challenge of growing collagen.
Where cartilage provides the lubricated smooth surface and shock absorbers our knee joints need, it is collagen that gives cartilage its structural framework and tensile strength. Without collagen, cartilage has no framework upon which to attach.
In the past harvesting cartilage from other parts of the body and inserting it into the knee has been tried with limited success. Collagen, however, has remained the unresolved challenge.
What the German-based research project is proposing involves embedding host cartilage cells into a glycopolymer hydrogel and 3D printing multiple layers of the mix on the joint surfaces to recreate what the cartilage and collagen combination would do naturally.
The process is called BioPol-3D. In an August 21, 2024 Fraunhofer press release, Professor Ursula Anderer, who holds the Chair for Cell Biology and Tissue Engineering states, “Our approach to printing the cartilage cells goes beyond conventional methods because we mould the biological component – the cartilage cells – directly. In other words, we don’t first print a scaffold on which cells are later placed.” That solves the collagen challenge.
It remains a work in progress to get the printable ink mix just right so that the living cartilage cells remain viable throughout the layering process and after. Anderer notes “the inks must be biocompatible and biodegradable” while the printing itself must produce “the desired cartilage shape” with “a high degree of stability and strength.” The goal is “to establish an advanced 3D cell culture for the treatment of cartilage damage and at the same time revolutionize the production of such moulded bodies through additive manufacturing.”
I wonder if my knee surgeon has seen the work being done at the Fraunhofer and Brandenburg. If it is ready for clinical trials and perfected before the end of the decade, I am sure he will become aware because knee replacement will never be the same as medical 3D-printing comes of age in the third decade of the 21st century.
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]]>The post Researchers Develop 3D Resin Ink To Print Artificial Lenses appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>Artificial lenses are not equal. Neither are eye shapes all the same. Sometimes refractive errors occur because the lens is not a good match for the eye in which it is placed. The result is less-than-perfect or impaired vision. That has been the case with my wife’s first cataract surgery. The corrected eye has a portion of her vision cut off because of the lens shape.
Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide. They are a common condition of people as they age, and since the mean global population age continues to rise, the need for lens transplants is increasing.
The only effective treatment today is surgery requiring cutting into the eye, opening the anterior capsule of the lens, emulsifying and extracting it leaving an empty capsular bag and filling it with an artificial lens replacement.
In Canada according to the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, over a half million cataract surgeries are performed annually. More than 26 million are done globally each year.
The first artificial lens implanted in a human eye took place in 1795. The lens was made from glass. In 1949 intraocular lenses made from methyl methacrylate polymer were first introduced. In the 1980s, foldable lenses were invented to make it possible for smaller incisions in the eye and shorter recovery periods with fewer complications. Today, intraocular lenses are made from hydrophilic (they attract water) and hydrophobic (they repel water) acrylics. The lenses are manufactured using lathing and moulding technologies. These methods produce lenses with excellent optical clarity and human biocompatibility but design customization is limited. Hence, situations like the one experienced by my wife.
At the University of East Anglia (UEA), pioneering work on ink resins for 3D printing of intraocular lenses is in its early stages. Dr. Aram Saeed and colleagues in the School of Pharmacy have published their current proof-of-concept study in the Journal of Current Eye Research. Their initial focus has been to create a 3D-printed lens for cataracts using biocompatible ink resins. The technology, however, has a much greater application than treating cataracts, offering several advantages including:
UEA is working with the Ophthalmology Department of Norwich and Norfolk University Hospital to develop the ink resins and technology for manufacturing to 3D-printed intraocular lenses. Clinical trials are still well into the future because the ongoing research is looking at improvements to:
The current 3D ink developed by the UEA team is made from photopolymerizable resin containing 2-phenoxyethyl acrylate, polyethylene glycol dimethacrylate and a photoinitiator. These prototype lenses are foldable and inserted into human capsular bag models that duplicate what would be found in an eye after a lens is removed during cataract surgery.
The technology could revolutionize lens development allowing for unlimited designs using biocompatible materials. For the estimated 26 million who will undergo cataract surgery this year and the 130,000 or 1 in 200 who will experience complications from the procedure, 3D-printed lenses cannot come soon enough.
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]]>The post Bioprinting at the Molecular Level and Even DNA appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>Researchers, however, are exploring a future where bioprinting will go below the sub-cellular level in constructing living tissue and biopolymers at a nanoscale. States Professor Seung Soo Oh, of Pohang University in South Korea, “The significance of this research lies in proving for the first time the possibility of printing 100% functionally and structurally active biopolymers in ultrafine 3D structures.”
What are biopolymers? They constitute the building blocks of cells. And now, research being done by Professor Oh and others, published recently in Advanced Science, indicates the development of technology to 3D print biopolymers molecule by molecule.
Pohang isn’t the only place where researchers are pushing the technological limits of 3D bioprinting. Back in 2018 scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley invented a way to synthesize DNA making DNA printing a future possibility. With the work at Pohang combined with Berkeley, we are a step closer to bioprinting DNA.
For researchers and bioengineers, the ability to 3D-print DNA opens new opportunities that can potentially revolutionize medicine. Imagine a printer that not only can produce living organs and tissues, but also DNA-specific constructs at the sub-cellular level including RNA, proteins, genes, and individual strings of nucleotides.
If unfamiliar with the term nucleotides, these are the fundamental chemical components of nucleic acids. We have named them adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). They pair to form chemical bonds with A and G and C combining to form DNA strands. In other words, they are the building blocks of life as we know it here on Earth.
When you start bioprinting nucleotides, personalized medical therapies take on a whole new meaning. It means you can print healthy genes and replace defective ones that cause congenital diseases.
Where CRISPR/Cas9, also developed at UC Berkeley, gives researchers and medical practitioners the ability to cut out individual gene sequences and replace them with healthy ones, now with DNA bioprinting it becomes possible to print an entire chromosome. Imagine what this could mean in cancer treatment and for many other intractable diseases.
The bioprinting dream, however, goes even further. Using the technology will revolutionize agriculture, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and even the fuels we make to create energy. Reinforcing this extended capability, Professor Oh states that 3D bioprinting isn’t restricted to just the “bio.” He sees its use with “various materials with diverse optical and electrical properties, including complex materials such as quantum dots and carbon nanotubes.”
Combining the South Korean advancements in nanoscale 3D printing of biopolymers with the work at Berkeley and biomedical engineers may soon see a future where we will print genes, chromosomes, replacement organs and tissue.
This is not Frankenstein’s monster pieced together and made animate, but rather a technological advancement that will allow us to reconstruct our damaged selves from the DNA level and up and even integrate nanomachines and non-biological components.
When Ray Kurzweil first envisioned what he called the Singularity, it involved the merging of human and artificial intelligence, in other words, what Star Trek would call a “mind meld.” I don’t think Kurzweil envisioned integration at the level of DNA.
His prediction of 2045 as the date when humans would become one with our technology is still 22 years in the future. But the evolution of 3D printing of biology with technology capable of adding integrated nanosized circuits puts a new spin on what the Singularity will be and when it might occur.
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]]>The post 3D Printing of Body Parts Gets an Upgrade appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The robotic arm was developed at UNSW’s Medical Robotics Lab under the supervision of Dr. Thanh Nho Do, a Scientia Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Mai Thank Thai, one of his Ph.D. students, and other UNSW staff. They recently published their research in the journal of Advanced Science.
Bioprinters up until now have tended to be large desktop printers. Creating living constructs, therefore, has been done outside the body. That means transporting the finished print job to the operatory and then inserting it into a host. This method can lead to many things going wrong. The finished print may not fit where it is intended to go. The threat of contamination is real. And during transport, the bioprinted material could be damaged.
The UNSW team decided that a better approach would be to do bioprinting inside a living body. So they created a proof-of-concept 3D bioprinter called the F3DB. It features a flexible robotic arm, a soft printing head, and software based on a kinematic inversion model and machine-learning-based controllers.
This bioprinter is intended to be a model for the future development of endoscopic surgical robots to allow for minimally-invasive procedures to be used to repair tissue damage from disease, trauma, and injury. How soon will this go from concept to common usage?
The team sees with further improvements to the F3DB, such as an integrated camera and real-time scanning to create 3D tomography, its successors within the next five years will be used by medical teams to do minimally invasive procedures to go to places hard to reach to make necessary repairs.
The team has demonstrated the F3DB using a variety of shaped biomaterials in an artificial colon as well as on a pig kidney. Their experiments did no damage to living cells which continued to grow after usage.
In a UNSW press release, Dr. Do states, “This system offers the potential for the precise reconstruction of three-dimensional wounds inside the body, such as gastric wall injuries or damage and disease inside the colon.”
He continues, describing the F3DB as “able to 3D print multilayered biomaterials of different sizes and shape…thanks to its flexible body.”
How big is the F3DB proof-of-concept? It is similar in size to commercial therapeutic endoscopes used today for gastroscopies and endoscopies. But the team believes it can be made even smaller for future applications.
The F3DB features:
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]]>The post NASA Has Jumped on the Generative AI Design and Manufacturing Bandwagon appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>Could this course have been inspired by NASA, the U.S. space agency, that recently started revealing hardware for spacecraft designed using 3D printing and AI?
Computer-aided-design has been around for years. In my consulting days, I would run into AutoCAD software being used by all my clients that were into manufacturing things. Computer numerical control (CNC) machines were commonly found on every shop floor cranking out parts designed for mass production assembly lines.
But today, with the advent of 3D printers it has become possible to do one-off custom-designed manufacturing. Designers can write some code (an algorithm) and craft unique products that can be individually printed. Going one better, AI can be enlisted to create that code in what is called generative design.
Generative design that uses machine learning, a simple form of AI, can begin with an idea expressed in words that can be generated as artwork, and from there be turned into a manufacturing specification blueprint without a significant amount of team devoted to trial and error by human designers and engineers. That’s because machine learning can test multiple iterations of a design idea rendered as art and knowing the material requirements, stress tolerances, and other parameters, create a perfect AI-designed “mousetrap.”
Computers and generative design software represent a twinning of a company’s physical design and manufacturing environment in a virtual space. The virtual or digital twin knows the machines being used, the working environment, the materials, the customer requirements, supplier sourcing and behaviours, and more. The digital twin constantly learns through continuous monitoring of the physical manufacturing environment and from this can either be supervised or unsupervised.
Generative design is fundamentally changing the way NASA is creating parts for future human and robotic space missions. Ryan McClelland in an article published on the FastCompany website told Jesus Diaz, he has drawn inspiration from science fiction shows that feature immense structures in outer space. He noted that current design and manufacturing processes will never get us to Star-Trek-sized spaceships. Instead, it will be parts designed by AI and manufactured using 3D printers that will get us there.
The part seen at the top of the page is one of a number built using generative design which involves providing the AI with geometric and physical specifications and then letting it proceed. The AI is told what the mass requirement is and what G-forces the part will be subjected to and then it begins its work. The parts produced, states McClelland “look somewhat alien and weird, but once you see them in function, it really makes sense.”
Using generative design compresses the entire process from concept to specification to end product. One thing McClelland notes is that AI needs tweaking because the AI NASA is using tends to make things too thin. But the AI comes up with 30 to 40 iterations in an hour after receiving design input which makes the job of NASA engineers a lot easier.
NASA has even started using generative design AI to autonomously design 3D-printed circuits and wires. And although the AI is not ready to build an entire spaceship, after all these are the early days, it is not that far in our future to see generative AI design systems creating a starship like the one being built in the picture below. Will the year be 2100, 2200, or 2300?
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]]>The post Water-Braiding Technology Invented For Next Generation Wireless Devices appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>How small is this? One human hair varies in diameter between 20 and 200 micrometres from tip to root. Spider web silk can vary from 3 to 8 micrometres in diameter. So that’s teeny tiny. And for us to pack in the many antennae that go into mobile phone technology today, the smaller the better.
Current manufacturing techniques can’t make one-micrometre filaments. But the machine invented by the Harvard SEAS team can. How does it do it? It uses the surface tension of water to grab and manipulate micromaterials. The capillary forces in the water are harnessed to help in the assembly using the variable width channels contained within the machine. Using 3D printing and the hydrophilic properties of the machine’s walls, the team used surface tension to guide kevlar nanowires attached to small floats which as they travelled through the device plaited into micrometre-scale braids.
On October 26, 2022, Nature published an article describing their invention. States Ahmed Sherif, a Ph.D. student at SEAS and one of the co-authors of the published paper, “The amazing thing about surface tension is that it produces forces that are gentle enough to grab tiny objects, even with a machine big enough to fit in your hand.”
The technology may become the standard for nanoscopic manufacturing in the near future. It’s inexpensive and easy to make. Previous nanomanufacturing methods used laser tweezers. But the SEAS invention uses a tank of water and a commonly used 3D printer. For a demonstration watch this video.
What does the machine look like? It is a very simple-looking piece of 3D-printed plastic about the size of a standard Nintendo game cartridge. Its interior has carved channels of varying widths from wide to narrow. The channels intersect. The plastic used is hydrophilic which means it attracts water. When a millimetre-sized piece of floating plastic is placed within the device and then immersed the water’s surface tension repels the plastic. When two plastic floats are put in the device with attached microscopic fibres they move through the interior following the variable width channels which causes them to twist around each other. Add a third float and the fibres plait into braids that are ten times smaller than a single human hair.
States Vinothan Manoharan, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Physics at SEAS, and senior author of the paper, “our work offers a potentially inexpensive way to manufacture microstructured and possibly nanostructured materials.”
For high-frequency electronics manufacturers, this could prove to be a game-changer.
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]]>The post Habitat for Humanity is 3D Printing Homes appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>Today, more than 1.6 billion people on the planet lack adequate shelter. Habitat, through the efforts of volunteers and donations, is building homes to address this global challenge and break the cycle of poverty and homelessness.
One of Habitat’s most famous volunteers is the former U.S. President Jimmy Carter who along with his wife Rosalynn, since 1984, have lent their efforts to the building of Habitat homes across the globe. The Carter Work Project has become an annual event for Habitat only interrupted recently by the COVID-19 pandemic. But it was a story appearing online yesterday written by Vanessa Bates Ramirez that caught my eye leading to me writing this posting.
A house in Williamsburg, Virginia, built for Habitat has used 3D printing for the major components of the construction. Completed before Christmas last year with a family moving in time for the holidays, the 3D printed home has exterior walls made of 3D-printed concrete. Construction of the walls took only 28 hours to be complete.
The use of 3D printing helped reduce building costs by 15% and from start to finish was completed in three months. The company constructing the home was Alquist which used a Danish manufactured 3D printer to do this first job for Habitat.
Alquist’s mission statement is to reduce the cost of home construction and assist in rural revitalization throughout the United States. It currently is working in 20 states using 3D printers on projects to construct new roads, elevator shafts, retaining walls, and other traditional concrete structures.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, American costs for lumber have risen 50%. This means wood for framing and walls contributed to an average increase of $25,000 per home in 2021. By 3D printing much of the home’s walls, however, Alquist can remove the added cost.
The printer Alquist is using comes from a company named COBOD which is an acronym for Construction Of Buildings On Demand. Called the BOD2, the printer can be mounted on a variety of truss frames that can be configured for various project types and building sites. The structure lends stability to the printing process which is guided by a surface mapping tool that compensates for non-level and uneven surfaces as it lays down concrete. The print nozzle is designed to smooth or texture the concrete as required. Using the BOD2 means less cladding is needed to frame walls, and also less post-treatment of the finished concrete compared to traditional construction techniques. The ink material choices for it can vary from fine mortars to aggregates of up to 10 millimetres in size.
Alquist, as an added bonus for the finished Williamsburg home, has installed in the kitchen a 3D printer for the homeowners to print replacement parts such as doorknobs, and light switch covers. The Williamsburg home is the first Habitat project using 3D printing. A second should be completed next month in Tempe, Arizona.
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]]>The post Why Medicine is Turning to 3D Printing appeared first on Techso Mogro.
]]>The medical field has been experimenting with 3D printing for more than two decades and we are now beginning to realize the full benefits. The technology offers inexpensive alternatives to traditional medical interventions. Today, 3D printed prosthetics and implants for dental, spinal, and other disorders are replacing traditional methods of manufacturing these items. It is even being used to do rapid builds of custom surgical tools to meet the specific needs of a single or multiple medical procedure.
The benefits of this ability to do mass customization to produce complex end products mean better patient interventions and healthier long-term outcomes. That’s the beauty of 3D printing. Timely production, quick alterations, customization on the fly, and one-off items. And the cost when compared to manufacturing the traditional way is significantly less meaning savings for hospitals in terms of the need to keep inventory volumes sufficient for anticipated procedures, with the items often exceeding their shelf expiry dates. And it means those cost savings can be passed on to patients making medical interventions more affordable.
3D printing has introduced bioprinting, using living cells as the ink to create tissue and organs for surgical implantation. It means instead of using donated tissues and organs, the patient’s own cells can be the building blocks to treat organ failure and reconstruction. For hospitals, the chronic shortage of transplantable organs will no longer be a problem. Instead, tissue engineering using the patient’s own stem cells combined with growth factors can produce the living ink that 3D printers can use to build a new kidney or other vital organs. Or 3D printers can apply the living ink to a scaffold made of inert materials that become the structure for tissue regeneration whether it be cartilage, bone, muscle, or blood vessels.
How is customization achieved? Whether it’s the use of stereolithography or other means of 3D printing, the technology has the ability to build artificial limbs and implants for clients. Prosthetics can be made within 24 hours for dental, spinal, and even hip implants. Using 3D printing implants and prosthetics solves the persistent problem for orthopedics of having an insufficient supply of generalized products for procedures. Instead, the printer offers complete customization of design that is a perfect fit for the client.
Creating an accurate anatomical model of a patient’s heart in preparation for surgery is now possible using 3D printers that can use medical diagnostic imaging files from MRIs, CAT scans, and other radiology tools as digital sources. It gives surgeons and medical assistants a better gauge of the biological and physical makeup of the targeted organ allows for better decision-making prior to and during the performance of the procedure.
In the past 2D images from catheterization, fluoroscopy, x-rays and other types of scans formed the basis for a surgeon’s understanding of a patient’s medical status. The alternative to this was the study of the anatomy of cadavers. But finding a cadaver with the same pathology as that of the patient was next to impossible. 3D-rendered anatomical models, however, render those past methodologies obsolescent.
3D printing is fast. The prosthetics and implants produced this way exhibit accurate resolution and a level of accuracy not possible from milling and forging an alternative. And delivery time for the finished object is a fraction of what it would be if a manufacturer were to be asked to provide an equivalent.
Finally, it should be noted that medical 3D printing brings democratization of design to medical interventions as well as an unprecedented ability for knowledge sharing among medical professionals and researchers.
The use of 3D-printing data files means what is produced can be shared allowing for faster dissemination of new knowledge and techniques within medicine. Medical practitioners and laboratory researchers can access downloadable files from open-source databases to replicate 3D-printed bio-inks, models, and devices. Since 2014, the United States National Institutes of Health have established a 3D Print Exchange to promote sharing of 3D-print files in support of biomedical science advances.
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