QuesTek’s Director of Research and Development Gary Whelan recently authored an article for Healthcare Business Today about how Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) can solve for fatigue in 3D printed medical implants.
Using additive manufacturing in implants like hips and knees may mean it’s easier to customize the product to the patient. However, other problems are introduced at the micro level. Gary explains in this excerpt:
The Fatigue Problem in Additive Manufacturing
Traditional medical devices manufactured through casting or machining have long-established performance data and validated lifespans. In contrast, AM medical devices present quite a bit more uncertainty. Their performance is less predictable, and their failure mechanisms can differ significantly from conventionally produced parts.
For manufacturers, this uncertainty translates into higher testing costs, longer development timelines, and greater regulatory scrutiny. Fatigue — the slow breakdown of a material during repeated loading cycles — is especially tricky to predict because it often comes down to rare, hard-to-spot weak points that cause failure much earlier than expected.
Other properties, like strength, can be characterized with one or a few tests, as they are measured as the average behavior of a material. However, fatigue failure occurs due to the weakest link at the microscale. Manufacturers must design around that point of failure, rather than the average, to make sure the part doesn’t fail unexpectedly.
Device designers and quality analysis and control engineers are seeking new tools that can help them with that work, especially in AM parts that will be subjected to physiological loading.
ICME’s Role in Solving Fatigue Challenges
Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) offers a powerful response to this challenge. By combining physics-based modeling, materials science, and component-level analysis – what we call “materials concurrency” – ICME enables manufacturers to simulate how materials and the medical devices that contain those materials will behave under real-world operating conditions. This approach makes it possible to model fatigue life virtually, long before a part is printed or implanted.
Read the full article at Healthcare Business Today.