EOS will exhibit innovative orthopaedic applications — and a working EOSINT M 270 Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) system — at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Annual Meeting, March 9-13, in New Orleans, LA. The company will also present new process and quality enhancements for their manufacturing equipment at its booth, #5573.
“Laser-sintering technology manufactures completely customizable products cost-effectively, no matter how intricate their shape is. That’s invaluable to the orthopaedic industry,” says Martin Bullemer, key account manager medical of EOS. “Now that EOS offers greater traceability and process documentation as well, we expect this sector of our medical business to grow rapidly.”
EOS plastic and metal laser-sintering systems are increasingly being used to create devices, implants, ortheses, prostheses, surgical equipment, and instrument prototypes. The systems allow medical designers to tailor-make parts that serve doctors’ and patients’ individual needs. In addition, laser-sintering enables engineers to create complex geometries such as porous surfaces that encourage osteointegration, and implants with mesh or scaffold structures that are lighter-weight and more comfortable for patients.
Materials available from EOS for orthopaedic applications include polyamides, a high-performance PEEK polymer, stainless steels, cobalt chromes, and different titanium grades.
Recent developments that EOS will highlight at AAOS are new end-to-end quality assurance and manufacturing process controls. DMLS now features an Integrated Process Chain Management module to ensure documentation of materials and processes. In addition, plastics laser-sintering systems now include as an optionnewPart Property Profiles (PPP), which offer designers constant access to standardized property profiles and corresponding material values. As a result, the PPP enables manufacturers to choose, from predetermined settings, the approach that is most cost-effective for their needs.
Laurent Cataldo, GM of BESTinCLASS, a micro-machining company that is in a joint venture with EOS, will be at the booth to display machined parts and offer technical background. BESTinCLASS provides post-processing, including extremely fine surface finishing and polishing, for laser-sintered metal parts. Several EOS customers who supply orthopaedic services will also exhibit at the AAOS Annual Meeting.