Resumen de Incremental sheet forming applied to the manufacturing of biocompatible polymer prostheses
Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) is a technology that has been mainly applied on metallic sheets during the last two decades. Nevertheless, its use on polymeric materials is more recent. Without distinguishing the raw material employed, ISF is used due to its flexibility, low machine and tooling costs, low batch production, the possibility of producing complex geometries and high degree of customization. For this reason ISF seems to be the ideal process for prosthesis production. There are several research works on ISF technology for producing biocompatible devices with titanium sheet metal parts, while there is scarce work regarding its use with polymeric materials.
For this reason, the main objective of the thesis is to study the applicability of the ISF technology, considering Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) and Two Point Incremental Forming (TPIF) variants, on biocompatible polymers to obtain a real customized cranial implant, which is the case study of the thesis. To achieve this goal, a methodology based on the following steps is proposed: a) Experimental work in SPIF to produce basic geometries using non-biocompatible and biocompatible polymers, b) Study of the influence of the process parameters in the SPIF process of polymers, as well as its influence in formability, c) Case study: customized cranial implant. Achieving the objectives established in these stages will permit to improve the knowledge about ISF process in order to successfully manufacture customized implants at a low cost and reduced time-to-market.
