Project ID:  PN-III-P2-2.1-PED-2016-1309

Project Responsible P1:  Dr. George Stan

Project Type: National

Funded by: Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, UEFISCDI

Contractor:  National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics

Sub-Contractor: National Institute of Materials Physics (P1)

Project Status: In progress

Start Date: 23 August, 2017

End Date: 31 December, 2018

Project summary: 

This project starts from an existing technology for synthesis of personalized cranial prostheses developed in collaboration between the Laser-Surface-Plasma Interactions Laboratory in INFLPR and Dr. Oblu Hospital in Iasi and it aims towards a radical modification of the method for easier implementation, an increase in prostheses shape and dimensions flexibility and a drastic reduction of production costs. The initial procedure started with acquisition of commercial metallic prostheses shaped in form of a mesh (1), their coating with a thin film of bioactive ceramic by pulsed laser deposition, identification of fractures dimensions by computer tomography (3), manual cutting of the meshes function of the wound dimensions (5). The new method involves a single step direct synthesis by laser additive manufacturing of a prosthesis with required dimensions covered by a bioactive layer, starting from metallic and ceramic powders. The aim is to eliminate the steps that involve acquisition of expensive commercial devices and the deposition techniques that require high vacuum and heating of the prostheses at high temperatures. We aim at the end of the Project to delineate the technology that will allow a single user to scan a patient by computer tomography, the fracture’s dimensions to be introduced in a pre-established CAD-CAM software and with the push of a single button to be able to generate in real time a prosthesis with required dimensions and functionality.

Project objectives: 

O1. Synthesis of a metallic frame by direct laser deposition (DLD) additive manufacturing;

O2. Fabrication by DLD of metallic mesh prostheses with complex 3D shapes;

O3. Study on the bio-functionalization of DLD prostheses with thin bioactive ceramic coatings;

O4. Fabrication end products: DLD metallic prostheses coated with bioactive ceramics.