Indirect Additive Manufacturing Processing of Poly-Lactide-co-Glycolide

Abstract

The research and development of biomaterials have brought about new treatments in regenerative medicine. The research work presented in this paper focus on the use of Poly-Lactide-co-glycolide (PLGA) in the fabrication of patient specific fracture fixation plate by indirect additive manufacturing method. The use of biopolymers such as PLGA has been seen as a solution to the problems of stress shield and post-surgery inherent in biometal fixation plates. This paper discusses the consequence of this processing method on characteristics and properties of the PLGA. PLGA of ratio 50:50, 65:35 and 85:15 was processed and compared. The granules of PLGA were positioned in the cavity of the stereolithography (SLA) mould and heated under constant pressure with sintering temperature of 73°C for 2.0hours. Both the variation in samples fabricated from this process with the designed model and the changes in material characteristics are below 10%. The flexural strength for PLGA of ratio 50:50, 65:35 and 85:15 is 73.8±2.3MPa, 75.0±2.8, 60.0±11.7, respectively. The characteristics and mechanical tests indicate that the results were comparable with conventional processing of PLGA.