The Arburg Plastic Freeforming process (APF) is a unique additive manufacturing material jetting method. In APF, a thermoplastic material is supplied as pellets, melted and selectively deposited as droplets, enabling the use of commercial materials in their original shape instead of filaments. The medical industry could significantly benefit from the use of additive manufacturing for the onsite fabrication of customized medical aids and therapeutic devices in a fast and economical way. In the medical field, the utilized materials need to be certified for such applications and cannot be altered in any way to make them printable, because modifications annul the certification. Therefore, it is necessary to modify the processing conditions rather than the materials for successful printing. In this research, a medical-grade poly(methyl methacrylate) was analyzed. The deposition parameters were kept constant, while the drop aspect ratio, discharge rate, melt temperatures, and build chamber temperature were varied to obtain specimens with different geometrical accuracy. Once satisfactory geometrical accuracy was obtained, tensile properties of specimens printed individually or in batches of five were tested in two different orientations. It was found that parts printed individually with an XY orientation showed the highest tensile properties; however, there is still room for improvement by optimizing the processing conditions to maximize the mechanical strength of printed specimens.
Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, has become an important manufacturing method, especially in the medical field. AM enables patient-specific instruments, prosthetics, prototypes, pre-operative models, implants, surgical cutting and drill guides, and even organ replacements, which are costlier if manufactured in other ways. [1][2][3][4][5] Nevertheless, this technology still must overcome some limitations to ensure safe and reproducible performance, for invasive medical applications. In particular, for long-term applications such as permanent implants, the material, and the printed part have to fulfill strict requirements in terms of biocompatibility and mechanical performance. [6] Additively manufactured specimens most likely show anisotropic and weaker mechanical properties compared to specimens produced via injection molding or subtractive manufacturing, mainly due to the lower inter-and intra-layer bonding as well as the presence of numerous weld lines. This is specifically true for parts manufactured by material extrusion (MEX) additive manufacturing methods. [7][8][9] However, several investigations on setting different parameters in MEX and their influence on the mechanical properties of printed specimens have already been performed with the aim of maximizing the mechanical performance of MEX parts. [7,[10][11][12][13][14][15] On the contrary, not much work has yet been done with the novel AM technology known as the ARBURG plastic freeforming (APF), [11][12][13]16] and the effects of
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