Design and Manufacturing of Bone Analog Models for the Mechanical Evaluation of Custom Medical Implants

The performance of orthopedic implants is often evaluated using cadaveric bone specimens. The high inter-specimen variability of cadaveric bone properties requires large sample sizes to obtain statistical significance. With recent focus on custom implants manufactured using direct metal freeform fabrication techniques, the need for a customized bone analog model is recognized. Data for bone geometry and internal structure were obtained from computed-tomography imaging. Traditional rapid prototyping techniques are then used to generate the rapid tooling from which composite bones that mimic the properties of the real bone can be duplicated. This work focused on the manufacturing process of bone analog models.