Materials for fracture experiments

[tsehrhardt]

I was wondering if anybody has found a 3D printing material that works well for fracture studies. I am aware of Sawbones, but would like to explore the possibility of using CT scans to generate 3D printed bones of different size/age/sex for fracture/trauma studies.

 

Thanks!

Terrie

[Dr. Mike]

This sounds like an interesting project. I don't know the answer but I'm curious if anyone has experience with this type of application.

[mplishka]

Cool article about using Finite Element Analysis to predict bone fractures (I love FEA ).  https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/finite-element-analysis/bone-breaking-predictions-put-to-test-with-fea   It's very accurate, so to that end, it might not be necessary to create 3d models if the actual bone can be scanned, digitally modelled and then virtually stressed.   

 

What types of fracture studies are you planning (if you can share ;-) ) ?    Are you looking from a predictive standpoint or from a pure analysis standpoint; perhaps trying to figure out how to prevent certain fractures based upon certain loadings?  

 

I think it would be fascinating to print bone with integrated sensors to understand specific deformations at multiple points. It would not necessarily be essential to fail the bone, just understand how forces are transmitted.

 

Printing with multiple materials would be cool in the future to create the ultimate composite bone model.

 

I can see potential problems with micro-anomalies in the bone, or in any of the constraints.  The result would false negative/positive failures. 

 

One could also do a hybrid approach.  Do FEA and at certain points in the analysis, export the deformed file with colors and print it out.  You can take the bone apart and see how it's bending/twisting/etc. and what's happening inside it.

 

Just some thoughts

 

Good luck!