An orthosis, or orthotic device is used to straighten or correct the posture of part of the body. A foot orthosis (FO) is the subject of study for this dissertation. A FO is situated between the foot and the midsole of the shoe and replaces the insole. Foot orthoses (FOs) are intended to prevent or aid in the recovery of injury by acting to redistribute pressure experienced by the plantar surface of the foot as well as cause adjustments to the relative positions of the foot's bones during standing and gait. Traditional methods for developing a FO require extensive skilled manual labour and are highly dependent on subjective input. Modern FO development methods have sought to address these issues through the use of computer driven technological advancements. Foot scanners record geometry, computer aided design (CAD) software is used to develop the FO geometry, and automated manufacturing tools are used to either fabricate the FO or fabricate a mould about which the FO can be formed. A variety of modern solutions have successfully automated the process, however, it remains highly subjective. Skilled manual labour has merely been replaced with equally subjective skilled computer labour. In particular, adjustments to the foot are made with basic deformation functions to the static surface foot models generated by modern digitizers. To improve upon this, a model that describes the mechanics and properties of the various tissues of the foot is required. Such a model will also be useful for validating and optimizing FO designs prior to fabrication through simulation of weight-bearing conditions. Given the deformable characteristics of the tissues of the foot, the finite element (FE) modeling method is appropriate. The FE foot model has become a common medical and engineering tool in recent years. Its application, however, has primarily been limited to research as few clinical applications warrant the development cost. High cost stems from the MRI or CT scan and the skilled labour required to assemble the model for FE analysis. Consequently, the FE modeling approach has previously been out of reach for the application of FO development. The solution proposed and implemented was to map a detailed generic FE foot model to an inexpensive surface scan obtained from a modern digitizer. The mapping accurately predicted anatomical geometry and resulted in simulation models that can be used in the FO development process first to carry out postural adjustments prescribed by a practitioner and second in a validation step where a FO design can be tested prior to fabrication. In addition to simulation tools, novel complementary tools were developed for designing and fabricating FOs. The simulation, design, and fabrication tools were incorporated into a novel, seven step FO development process. The proposed process is beneficial to FO development as it reduces the required subjective input from practitioners and lab technicians and allows for the validation of potential FO designs prior to fabrication. Future work is required to improve computational efficiency of the FE foot models and to fully automate the process to make it commercially viable. In addition to FOs, the proposed approach also presents opportunities for improving other orthoses and prostheses for the human body.

Additive friction stir deposition (AFSD) of AZ31B magnesium alloy was conducted to examine evolution of grain structure, phases, and crystallographic texture. AFSD was carried out using a hollow tool made from tool steel at a constant rotational velocity of 400 rpm on the AZ31B base plate. Bar stock of AZ31B was utilized as a feed material. The linear velocity of the tool was varied in the range of 4.2-6.3 mm/s. The feed rate of the material had to be maintained at a half value compared to the corresponding linear velocity for the successful deposition. The layer thickness and length of the deposits were kept constant at 1 mm and 50 mm respectively. The tool torque and actuator force values were recorded during the process and for calculation of the average input energy for each processing condition. Temperature during the AFSD experiments was monitored using a type k thermocouple located 4 mm beneath the deposition surface at the center of the deposition track. The average input energy values showed a decreasing trend with increasing tool linear velocity. The temperature values during deposition were ∼0.7 times the liquidus of the alloy. The deposited material then was examined by laser microscope and profilometer, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, electron back scatter diffraction (EBSC), contact angle measurement and micro hardness tests. The AFSD AZ31B samples showed reduction in areal surface roughness with an increase in the tool linear velocity. The X-ray spectra revealed increase in the intensity of prismatic planes of α-Mg phase with increase in tool linear velocity. AFSD of AZ31B Mg alloy resulted in shifting of the grain size from a broader and courser distribution within the feed material to a tighter distribution. Moreover, EBSD observations confirmed the refinement in grain size distribution as well as the presence of predominantly prismatic texture for the AFSD samples when compared to the feed material. There was a marginal improvement in the hardness for the AFSD samples compared to the feed material. However, there was no significant change in the contact angle measurements in simulated body fluid for the AFSD samples compared to the feed material. The current work demonstrated ability of AFSD technique for the additive fabrication of magnesium-based alloys and provided a methodology for examining various process attributes influencing the processing-structure-property relationship.

Orientador: Ruís Camargo Tokimatsu / Resumo: Esse trabalho tem a finalidade de projetar, com base em levantamento bibliográfico, uma prótese de disco intervertebral de Ti6Al4V pelo processo DMLS. Os sistemas de imagem de tomografias computadorizadas e ressonâncias magnéticas trabalham de maneira semelhante. Imagens em 3D de dados dos pacientes são construídas através da combinação de fatias 2D tomadas a partir de sistemas de sensores e da interpolação entre eles. A distância entre as fatias desses sistemas de imagens é grosseira comparada com a tecnologia da manufatura aditiva, portanto, esses processos combinam as imagens das fatias dentro de um software para criar um modelo 3D sobrepondo camadas, devido a essa sinergia entre os dois tipos de sistema, pesquisadores de todo o mundo tentam melhorar e inventar próteses para substituir o disco intervertebral através da ciência. Os resultados mostraram que a fabricação de uma prótese de disco com junta esférica pelo processo de manufatura aditiva é viável, porém nos segmentos menores, como na cervical ainda são difíceis de produzir devido à altura do disco intervertebral e ao limite da dimensão das camadas da manufatura aditiva, que atualmente estão por volta dos 20μm, por isso requerem tratamentos superficiais após sua fabricação. Espera-se que este trabalho possa ajudar futuros pesquisadores da área de biomecânica da coluna vertebral. / Abstract: This work has the purpose of designing, based on a bibliographical survey, an intervertebral disc prosthesis of Ti6Al4V by the DMLS process. Computed tomography (CT) imaging systems and MRIs work similarly. 3D images of patients data are constructed by combining 2D slices taken from sensor systems and interpolating between them. The distance between the slices of these imaging systems is rough compared to the additive manufacturing technology, so these processes combine the slice images within a software to create a 3D model overlapping layers because of this synergy between the two system types, researchers around the world try to improve and devise prostheses to replace the intervertebral disc through science. The results showed that the manufacture of a disc prosthesis with spherical joint by the additive manufacturing process is feasible, but in the smaller segments, such as in the cervical still difficult to produce due to the height of the intervertebral disc and to the limit of the size of the layers of the manufacture additives, which are currently around 20μm, so they require surface treatments after their manufacture. It is hoped that this work may help future researchers in the area of spinal biomechanics. / Mestre

La prise en compte des impacts environnementaux liés à la Fabrication Additive (FA) est un sujet encore en développement et loin d'être consolidé. Cette thèse tente de répondre à la question suivante: Comment identifier et maîtriser les impacts environnementaux liés à la mise en usage des technologies de Fabrication Additive ?Une approche centrée sur l’analyse de scénarios d’usages a été appliquée. Trois scénarios ont été identifiés et étudiés: 1) La Fabrication Personnelle; 2) l’Utilisation commerciale de la FA et 3) l’Utilisation Industrielle de la FA. L'analyse de la littérature et l’application de la méthode d’Analyse du Cycle de Vie – ACV ont fourni les données nécessaires afin d’identifier les différents hotspots environnementaux dans chaque scénario.Pour le cas de la « Fabrication Personnelle », l'étude souligne l'importance de mettre en évidence les aspects humains. La façon dont les gens utilisent la technologie génère bien souvent plus d’impact que la technologie elle-même. Pour le cas du scénario «Utilisation Commerciale», c’est la phase de production qui génère le plus d'impacts environnementaux, en raison de la consommation d’énergie du processus d'impression. Les résultats du scénario « Utilisation Industriel», avec l’utilisation de la technologie EBM, indiquent que la consommation d’énergie du processus d'impression, la fabrication de poudre, ainsi que les processus de Finition sont les principales sources d’impacts.Les résultats des trois études ont été analysés et rassemblés de manière à concevoir un cadre systémique montrant les contributeurs aux impacts dans le cas de la mise en usage de technologies de FA. Quatre groupes de contributeurs ont ainsi été identifiés en lien avec: le produit, le processus d'impression (aspects techniques), et le niveau d'expérience de l'utilisateur en matière de CAO et d'impression (aspects humains). Pour chaque groupe, plusieurs contributeurs ont été associés (consommation d’énergie, masse du produit, temps d’usage de la CAO,…). A partir de ce cadre, nous avons pu construire un modèle simplifié pour l’ACV adapté au cas de la mise en usage de la FA. Il a donné lieu à l’élaboration d’un démonstrateur pour estimer les impacts environnementaux liés à la mise en usage de la fabrication additive. / The subject of the environmental impacts related to Additive Manufacturing is evolving and far from being consolidated. This thesis tries to answer the following question: How to identify and control the environmental impacts associated to the use of Additive Manufacturing technologies? An approach centred on scenarios was applied. Three specific scenarios were identified and studied: 1) Personal Fabrication; 2) Business use of AM and 3) Industrial use of AM. Literature analysis and the use of the Life Cycle Assessment-LCA approach provided accurate data to identify the different hotspots of environmental impacts in each scenario.In the Personal Fabrication case, the study highlights the importance of placing a greater focus on the Human aspects. The way people use the technology often generates more impacts than the technology itself. In the ‘Business’ scenario the findings show that the energy consumed in Production phase is the most representative phase in terms of environmental impacts. Results from the ‘Industrial’ scenario using EBM technology suggests that the energy consumption of the Printing Process, the powder manufacturing, as well as the Post-treatment process are the main sources of the environmental impacts.The results of the three studies were analysed and gathered in such a way to design a systemic framework of impacts in the case of AM use. Four group of impacts drivers are recognised: The product and the Printing Process (Technical aspects) and the User’s level of experience in CAD and Printing (Human Aspects). For each group, several impact contributors are identified (product height, CAD use time, etc.). From this framework, an adapted LCA model was designed and a software concept was created to estimate the environmental impacts related to use of AM technologies.

Il est maintenant possible de fabriquer des structures treillis métalliques facilement avec la fabrication additive. Les structures en treillis peuvent être utilisées pour produire des pièces de faible masse et de haute résistance. Il n’existe pas de méthode de conception pour les structures treillis. Cette thèse se concentre sur les méthodes de conception des structures treillis et la manipulation dans le CAO et FAO pour faciliter l'intégration des structures treillis dans les produits. La thèse a abordé les questions de recherche suivantes:• Pourquoi les structures treillis sont-elles si peu utilisées dans la conception?• Quelles sont les informations nécessaires pour aider les concepteurs à concevoir des pièces contenant des structures treillis?• Comment les structures treillis peuvent-elles être créées rapidement et facilement dans le CAO?Les principales contributions sont les suivantes:• Une évaluation des outils CAO actuels dans la conception de structures en treillis en termes d'interface homme machine, de formats de fichiers CAO et de FAO pour la fabrication d'additive a été effectuée. Les résultats montrent que les outils de CAO et les formats de fichier CAO actuels ont des performances insuffisantes dans le contexte de la conception pour la fabrication d'additive. Les outils de CAO actuels créent et représentent actuellement des structures en treillis utilisant les surfaces limites des volumes. Cela contribue ainsi à la grande taille des fichiers, à une consommation élevée de mémoire vivre, ainsi des opérations fastidieuses pour les modélisations.• Une nouvelle stratégie de conception de structures treillis. Cette méthode sert de guide aux concepteurs pour l'intégration des structures en treillis dans les pièces fabriquées par fabrication additive en utilisant le matériau équivalent. Les concepteurs auront à leur disposition les informations nécessaires pour choisir les types et la densité des structure treillis à utiliser.• Une méthodologie pour calculer les propriétés matériau équivalent. Ces matériaux équivalents remplacent le besoin de créer des structures treillis dans le CAO et de les calculer par éléments-finis. Cela permettra d'économiser du temps dans la création de modèles CAO 3D et les calculs éléments finis.• Les principales caractéristiques géométriques des structures treillis ont été déterminées. Un modèle squelettique a été présenté pour définir les structures treillis à partir de points, de lignes, de sections et de joints au lieu des surfaces et des volumes. Une méthode est présentée pour visualiser et découper les structures treillis à partir du modèle squelette. / It is now possible to manufacture metallic lattice structures easily with additive manufacturing. Lattice structures can be used to produce high strength low mass parts. However, it does not exist a method to design lattice structures for additive manufacturing. This PhD focuses on lattice structure design methods and manipulation in CAD, CAE and CAM tools to facilitate the wide use of lattice structures in products. The thesis addressed the following research questions:• Why are lattice structures so little used in part designs?• What are the information necessary to help designers to design parts containing lattice structures?• How can lattice structures be created quickly and easily in CAD?The main contributions are:• An evaluation of current CAD tools in terms of human machine interface, CAD file formats, CAE and CAM to design lattice structures was conducted. The results show that current CAD tools and CAD file formats have insufficient performance in the context of design for additive manufacturing. Current CAD tools create and represent lattice structures using surfaces and volumes. This contributes to large file sizes, high RAM consumption, as well as time-consuming creations and operations.• A new lattice structure design strategy. This method serves as a guideline for designers to integrate lattice structures in additive manufactured parts using the concept of equivalent material. Designers will be able to choose lattice structure patterns and densities.• A methodology to create equivalent materials is presented. It is solid and does not contain any struts, thus has few surfaces only. With this equivalent material, it will be easier and quicker to conduct FEA due to the small number of surfaces involved. The characteristics of different lattice structure patterns and densities were determined, which are the relative Young’s modulus and relative strength in function of the relative density. This methodology can be applied to all lattice structures.• The main lattice structure geometrical characteristics were determined. A skeleton model was presented to define lattice structures with points, lines, sections and joints instead of surfaces and volumes. A method is presented to visualise in CAD and slice lattice structures in CAM from the skeleton model.

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The combined use of additive manufacturing (AM), biocompatible and biodegradable materials, cells and biomolecular signals is the most common biomanufacturing strategy applied in scaffold fabrication. AM processes offer a better control and the ability to actively design the porosity and interconnectivity of the scaffolds. When combined with clinical imaging data, these fabrication techniques can be used to produce constructs that are customised to the shape of the defect or injury. However, due to the hydrophobicity of the commonly used synthetic biopolymers, cell-seeding and proliferation efficiency are limited. Moreover, due to the tortuosity of the scaffolds, non-uniform cell distribution with rare cell adhesion in the core region also commonly exists. Additionally, the commercial available machines are not able to create multi-material and material gradient scaffolds that are required to mimic the nature of nature tissues. To overcome the above limitations, this thesis describes the development of a hybrid bio-additive manufacturing system, called plasma-assisted bioextruson system (PABS), to produce smart scaffold by combining multi-head polymer extrusion and the plasma surface modification layer by layer, in the same chamber. PABS allows not only multiple biomaterials printing with the multi-extrusion heads, but also enables in-process plasma surface modification for zonal plasma-treated scaffolds fabrication. The in-house user interface enables a high degree of scaffold design freedom as it allows users to create single or multi-material constructs with uniform pore size or pore size gradient by changing process parameters such as lay-down pattern, filament distance, feed rate and layer thickness. Water contact angle tests and in vitro biological tests confirm that the hydrophilicity of synthetic polymers is improved and cell attachment and proliferation are enhanced after the in-process plasma modification. The effect of plasma treatment is also investigated by using different plasma modification strategies and various plasma modification parameters, including the plasma deposition velocity and the distance between the plasma jet and the printed scaffolds. The biological results also show dependence between the surface modification strategies and cell proliferation. The mechanical compression results show that for a fixed plasma deposition velocity, the effect of changing the distance between the plasma head and the deposited material is not significant. However, for a fixed distance, the compressive modulus increases with the increase in the plasma deposition velocity.

Dans cette étude de doctorat, la technique de dépôt tridimensionnel de fibres (3DFD) a été appliquée pour développer et fabriquer des structures de support catalytique multi-canaux avancées. En utilisant cette technique, le matériau, la porosité, la forme et la taille des canaux et l'épaisseur des fibres peuvent être contrôlées. L'objectif de cette recherche est d'étudier les performances des supports structurés 3D conçus pour la méthanation du CO2 en termes d'activité, de sélectivité de stabilité et d’étudier l'impact des propriétés spécifiques introduites dans la conception structurale des supports. / In this doctoral study, the three dimensional fibre deposition (3DFD) technique has been applied to develop and manufacture advanced multi-channelled catalytic support structures. By using this technique, the material, the porosity, the shape and size of the channels and the thickness of the fibres can be controlled. The aim of this research is to investigate the possible benefits of 3D-designed structured supports for CO2 methanation in terms of activity, selectivity and stability and the impact of specific properties introduced in the structural design of the supports.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a growing process interesting many companies in many industries. Thereare multiple processes within the familty of AM, but this study focuses on laser blown powder (LBP). LBP involves a laser beam focused on the substrate with powder being blown into the laser beam. The laser beam melts both the powder and the surface of the substrate and as the laser beam moves and the melt pool solidies it leaves a bead of solid material behind. These beads are placed next to each other creating a layer which are then stacked, building the wanted geometry. As the method develops new materials are tested and this study analyses Haynes 282 powder onto Inconel 718 substrate. Multiple process parameters are involved in the LBP method and this study focuses on the impact of laser effect and scanning speed. Each value on the process parameters was inspired by previous reports with similar equipment and process. The laser effect ranges from 1600 W to 700 W, scanning speed ranges between 900 mm/min to 300 mm/min and the powder feeding rate was also varied from 4 g/min to 3 g/min. Each sample was built as a single bead and a multilayer specimen, which is ve layers and 16 beadswide at the bottom and 12 beads wide at the top. When analyzing the samples images from microscopes were mostly used for obtaining results. An image software called ImageJ allowed measurements in an image to obtain penetration depth or primary dendrite arm spacing. ImageJ also allowed measurements of porosity by turning the image binary and calculate the fraction of white and black. The results consists of numerical values and visual analysis of the bead geometry, minimum and maximum penetration, microstructure, porosity, hardness and cracks. The results show an increased bead width around 2 mm to 4 mm and decreased bead height around 0,2 mm to 0,7 mm of single beads with increased laser effect. Increased maximum penetration depth around, 200 μm to 500 μm, withincreased laser effect. More remelt between each deposited layer causing longer dendrites with increasinglaser effect. Porosity is decreased with an increased laser power, going from 0,04 % to 0,15 %. No distinct difference in hardness is observed between the samples, ranging between 255 HV to 310 HV. It is believed that aging causes the increased hardness right above the fusion zone. Cracks were found between dendrites and is believed to be caused by Laves-phases. Most results are comparable to previous similar studies, both as trends and numerical values. The statistics of the study is limited, meaning that all results should not be taken as granted but as a general guide line for more studies. The purpose and goals of the study has been met and completed.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Chemistry) / Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) is a light-emitting process generated by electrochemical redox reactions and has been widely used as an analytical tool, especially in the field of biosensing, that is, immunoassays and DNA-probe assays. Thus, the scope of this work was to develop a simple, sensitive ECL immunosensor for cardiac injury and to study and present insights into newly fabricated platforms for bioanalytical applications by using ECL as detection mechanism. / 2021-08-31