Creating implants for knees: from the foundry to finish: specific challenges are attendant with each step in processing medical prostheses, including the selection of the right abrasive at each stage--a critical element in achieving dimensional and final surface requirements.

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Medical: grinding

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Creating implants for knees: from the foundry to finish: specific challenges are attendant with each step in processing medical prostheses, including the selection of the right abrasive at each stage--a critical element in achieving dimensional and final surface requirements.

The goal of any manufacturing process is to maximize productivity and quality while minimizing total cost. Given that, there are specific challenges to meet during each stage of processing medical prostheses. Here, by way of example, we review the abrasive belt processing of femoral knee implants, but many of the considerations described here hold true for the production of other types of metallic orthopedic devices: tibial implants, hip implants, bone plates, tube plates, among others.

Various abrasive products are used throughout the process of refining raw castings into final prostheses, and selecting the right abrasive at each step is essential to reaching dimensional and final surface requirements.

Following are considerations to be addressed at each step:

Cropping castings--The trick to cropping investment castings from an investment tree is to be able to cut as close to the casting as possible without damaging ...

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