CRITICAL ISSUES IN MANUFACTURING DENTAL BRACKETS BY POWDER INJECTION MOLDING

Abstract

An early success of powder injection molding (PIM) for medical applications was orthodontic brackets, with annual global sales estimated to be similar to$130 million. However, utilizing PIM in the manufacture of medical products poses several challenges. Apart from stringent quality requirements and design issues in this high-volume manufacturing process, attention must also be focused on understanding the effect of exposure of the material to the biological environment. The current study details three cross-functional research efforts focused on challenges in the PIM of biomedical parts, using dental brackets as an example. The first study addresses dimensional scatter of microscale features in alumina dental brackets. The second study examines imbalance filling in multi-cavity tooling. The third study covers the characterization of biofilm formation on dental brackets. Collectively, the three studies demonstrate the importance of multidisciplinary efforts to continue to increase opportunities in the manufacturing of metal and ceramic medical components by PIM.