Evaluation of titanium alloy fabricated using electron beam melting and traditional casting technique

Purpose: Recent advances in the field of medical industry have encouraged the surgeons and researchers to find alternative ways in the fabrication of implants. The average life of an implant depends on the implant material, its fabrication and patient fixation type. Approach: Implants produced through casting are of standard shapes and sizes. Moreover, it involves several steps that increase the production cost and time. Alternatively, it is possible to produce custom design implant with Additive manufacturing technology in lesser amount of time with no material wastage. Objective: The objective of this research is to outline the manufacturing technologies, involved in the fabrication of reconstruction plates and compare the mechanical properties between them. Finding/Results: The results show a significant difference between the reconstruction plates produced through Electron beam melting (EBM) an additive manufacturing technology and commercial produced casting technique. The EBM produced plates has marginally higher tensile strength of 608 MPa when compared to the commercially available casting plate with the strength of 557 MPa. Conclusion: The EBM is an effective technology exhibiting favourable results in fabricating customized reconstruction plates with better mechanical properties when compared to traditional fabrication methods. EBM produced implants decreases the implant failure and concomitantly reduces the number of revisions thus eliminating the psychological stress and pain of the patients.