Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jul;62(7):2005-2017.
doi: 10.1007/s11517-024-03038-7. Epub 2024 Mar 3.

Influence of build orientation and support structure on additive manufacturing of human knee replacements: a computational study

Stephanie DeCarvalho  1 , Osama Aljarrah  2 , Zi Chen  3 , Jun Li  4
Affiliations

Influence of build orientation and support structure on additive manufacturing of human knee replacements: a computational study

Stephanie DeCarvalho et al. Med Biol Eng Comput. 2024 Jul.

Abstract

Developing patient-specific implants has an increasing interest in the application of emerging additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. On the other hand, despite advances in total knee replacement (TKR), studies suggest that up to 20% of patients with elective TKR are dissatisfied with the outcome. By creating 3D objects from digital models, AM enables the production of patient-specific implants with complex geometries, such as those required for knee replacements. Previous studies have highlighted concerns regarding the risk of residual stresses and shape distortions in AM parts, which could lead to structural failure or other complications. This article presents a computational framework that uses CT images to create patient-specific finite element models for optimizing AM knee replacements. The workflow includes image processing in the open-source software 3DSlicer and MeshLab and AM process simulations in the commercial platform 3DEXPERIENCE. The approach is demonstrated on a distal femur replacement for a 50-year-old male patient from the open-access Natural Knee Data. The results show that build orientations have a significant impact on both shape distortions and residual stresses. Support structures have a marginal effect on residual stresses but strongly influence shape distortions, whereas conical support exhibits a maximum distortion of 18.5 mm. Future research can explore how these factors affect the functionality of AM knee replacements under in-service loading.

Keywords: Additive manufacturing; Finite element simulations; Knee replacements; Residual stress; Shape distortion.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Hanna Eskander HS (2016) Knee surgery: total knee replacement or partial knee replacement. Orthop Rheumatol 3(4). https://doi.org/10.19080/oroaj.2016.03.555619
    1. Hériveaux Y, Le Cann S, Fraulob M, Vennat E, Nguyen V-H, Haïat G (2022) Mechanical micromodeling of stress-shielding at the bone-implant interphase under shear loading. Med Biol Eng Compu 60(11):3281–3293. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-022-02657-2 - DOI
    1. Hak DJ, Mauffrey C, Seligson D, Lindeque B (2014) Use of carbon-fiber-reinforced composite implants in orthopedic surgery. Orthopedics
    1. Al-Tamimi AA, Peach C, Fernandes PR, Cseke A, Bartolo PJDS (2017) Topology optimization to reduce the stress shielding effect for orthopedic applications. Procedia CIRP 65:202–206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.04.032 . 3rd CIRP Conference on BioManufacturing
    1. Al-Ketan O, Abu Al-Rub RK (2019) Multifunctional mechanical metamaterials based on triply periodic minimal surface lattices. Adv Eng Mater 21(10):1900524. https://doi.org/10.1002/adem.201900524 - DOI

LinkOut - more resources