Additive Manufacturing for medical devices

Additive manufacturing has established itself in medical technology where geometries are required that cannot be produced otherwise: porous structures for bone ingrowth, patient-specific implants and drilling guides, lightweight designs with internal channels. For metals, powder bed laser melting is the norm, usually with Ti-6Al-4V ELI or cobalt-chrome.

In regulatory terms the appeal is also the difficulty. Every part is created anew, and the process co-determines material properties — position in the build chamber, exposure strategy, powder quality and reuse cycles affect density, microstructure and fatigue strength. Additive manufacturing is therefore a process requiring validation with particularly dense parameter monitoring, and powder management and batch traceability belong at the core of the documentation.

Then comes post-processing, which often exceeds the build effort: removing supports, stress relieving, hot isostatic pressing, machining functional surfaces, finishing surfaces and — not least — removing residual powder from cavities. For buyers that is the revealing question: not who prints, but who covers the whole path to an inspectable part.