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On Mechanical, Physical, and Bioactivity Characteristics of Material Extrusion Printed Polyether Ether Ketone

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Abstract

High-performance polyether ether ketone (PEEK) thermoplastic is considered to be one of the most desirable materials for its intended biomedical implications, including oral implantology, prosthodontics, dental implants, and orthopaedics. Therefore, the processing of PEEK through material extrusion (ME) as a 3D printing process has been preferred due to its affordability, better process parameters, and mass customization. In the present study, attempts have been made to study the effects of various input process parameters of an in-house modified ME system on tensile strength, surface finish, and bioactivity. Underlining the scientific importance of input process parameters of ME, including nozzle temperature (Nt), printing speed (Ps), layer thickness (Lt), and build-platform temperature (Bt), their effects on the aforementioned characteristics of 3D printed PEEK specimens have been studied through employing Taguchi’s statistical analysis. The in-vitro cell viability test has been performed using Sprague–Dawley rat bone marrow-derived cells for 21 days. In addition to this, Scanning electron microscopic analysis has also been performed at various stages of this experimental study for supporting micro-characterization. This study indicated that the selected input process parameters strongly influence the tensile strength and surface finish of the as-printed specimens. The optimized print setting advised by the genetic algorithm (GA) included: Nt-440 °C, Ps-10 mm/min, Lt-0.1 mm, and Bt-270 °C. Further, the in-vitro results confirmed the bioactivity of the printed PEEK specimens with the tendency of cell viability. The novelty of the work is to develop a statistical model between ME parameters for PEEK between surface finish and tensile strength and to verify the bioactivity of the printed parts.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are highly thankful to the Center for Manufacturing Research, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana, India, and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the National University of Singapore for technical assistance in this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Center for Research and Development, Chandigarh University, Mohali, Punjab, India

    Ranvijay Kumar

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India

    Gurminder Singh

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Amutha Chinappan, Erfan Rezvani Ghomi, Sunpreet Singh & Seeram Ramakrishna

  4. School of Design-II, Department of Product and Industrial Design, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India

    Kamalpreet Sandhu

  5. Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

    Roger Narayan

  6. Department of Biomedical Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA

    Roger Narayan

  7. Department of Pharmaceutics, Indira College of Pharmacy, Nanded, Maharashtra, India

    Prakash Katakam

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Kumar, R., Singh, G., Chinappan, A. et al. On Mechanical, Physical, and Bioactivity Characteristics of Material Extrusion Printed Polyether Ether Ketone. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 32, 5885–5894 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-022-07519-4

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