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Nitinol (NiTi) is a common alloy used in medical devices such as stents, guidewires and bone staples due to its exceptional superelasticity, shape memory effect, low stiffness, damping, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. It is a good candidate material for 3D printing medical device components because its properties translate well to additive manufacturing.
Additive manufacturing of Nitinol allows the fabrication of complex device geometries with pre-designed porosity, homogeneous composition, high density, near net shape and requires very little to no post-processing. However, the work hardening rate of NiTi can present challenges when fabricated using conventional machining processes.
The work hardening rate of nitinol is sensitive to the composition and production thermal gradients, which can lead to large variation in austenite finish (Af) temperature of the final component. This challenge has impeded the large scale production of additively manufactured NiTi components.
A systematic framework was developed to optimize the build parameters of NiTi 3D printing, which enables the synthesis of defect-free NiTi structures in accordance to ASTM F2063-05. This framework can be applied to any NiTi chemistry, reducing trial and error with repeated builds, while accelerating development.
Carpenter Additive has used this optimization framework to print a series of NiTi samples that exhibit shape memory and superelasticity, demonstrating