Effect of Process Parameters on Hardness of Hip Joint Developed by Combining Fused Deposition Modelling and Investment Casting

摘要

Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is one of the commonly used processes, which read data from CAD drawing and generate 3-D objects layer-by-layer. In the present research work, biomedical implant (hip joint) has been developed by combination of two processes; FDM and investment casting (IC). Three controllable factors of the IC process (namely: number of layer, clay viscosity, dry time of primary coating) were studied at three levels each by Taguchi’s parametric approach and single-response optimization was conducted to identify the main factors controlling hardness of cast specimen. The master patterns of hip joint were of Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) material (prepared with FDM process) and final cast specimens of stainless steel (SS-316L) were made through ceramic shell IC at recommended parameters. The results of study suggests that for hardness, contribution of number of layers, viscosity of primary dip and dry time of primary coating is 16.17, 65.8 and 13.63 % respectively. Further surface morphology has been used to analyze the hardness data.