Application of a Hybrid Additive Manufacturing Methodology to Produce a Metal/Polymer Customized Dental Implant

In this paper an integrated methodology for implants personalized manufacturing is presented. This methodology materializes the hybrid material implants manufacturing through the integration of two or more advanced Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies. Furthermore, high strength biomechanical implants with optimized geometry and mass can be manufactured by biomimetic concepts application. The combination of polymers and ceramics or polymers and metal materials (or metal alloys) allows a significant leap in the development and production of a great diversity of components and applications. The combination of advanced additive manufacturing processes, e.g. the Selective Laser Melting (SLM) or Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and the StereoLithography (SL), make possible the production of parts with almost unlimited geometric freedom and custom multimaterial. The manufacturing flexibility and the processing capacity of the different combinations of materials - metal/polymer - obtained from hybrid additive manufacturing systems - SLM/SL - are demonstrated here by the manufacture of a dental bridge implant.