Production tolerance of additive manufactured polymeric objects for clinical applications.
To determine the production tolerance of four commercially available additive manufacturing systems.



By reverse engineering annex A and B from the ISO_12836;2012, two geometrical figures relevant to dentistry was obtained. Object A specifies the measurement of an inlay-shaped object and B a multi-unit specimen to simulate a four-unit bridge model. The objects were divided into x, y and z measurements, object A was divided into a total of 16 parameters and object B was tested for 12 parameters. The objects were designed digitally and manufactured by professionals in four different additive manufacturing systems; each system produced 10 samples of each objects.



For object A, three manufacturers presented an accuracy of <100μm and one system showed an accuracy of <20μm. For object B, all systems presented an accuracy of <100μm, and most parameters were <40μm. The standard deviation for most parameters were <40μm.



The growing interest and use of intra-oral digitizing systems stresses the use of computer aided manufacturing of working models. The additive manufacturing techniques has the potential to help us in the digital workflow. Thus, it is important to have knowledge about production accuracy and tolerances. This study presents a method to test additive manufacturing units for accuracy and repeatability.
Department of Prosthodontics, Faculty of Odontology, Malmö University, Smedjegatan 16, 214 21 Malmö, Sweden. Electronic address: Michael.Braian@mah.se.
Michael
M
Braian
Department of Prosthodontics, Faculty of Odontology, Malmö University, Smedjegatan 16, 214 21 Malmö, Sweden. Electronic address: Ryo.Jimbo@mah.se.
Ryo
R
Jimbo
Department of Prosthodontics, Faculty of Odontology, Malmö University, Smedjegatan 16, 214 21 Malmö, Sweden. Electronic address: Ann.Wennerberg@mah.se.
Ann
A
Wennerberg
D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D003813:Dentistry; D003830:Denture, Partial, Fixed; D006801:Humans
Accuracy; Additive manufacturing; Dentistry; Rapid prototyping; Selective laser sintering; Stereolithography