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Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing

Additive Manufacturing of Biomaterials

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Additive Manufacturing (AM) Program studies the characteristics, material properties, and behaviors of biomaterials to develop metrology tools and measurement standards for AM. If you are interested in collaboration opportunities, or want to learn more about our efforts in biomaterials AM, please contact us. 

Learn about our biomaterials AM work by exploring the content below. 
Projects | News

A model skull with additively manufactured facial prosthetics lining the jaw, chin, and cheek bone areas. The skull is held up for the camera.
NIST studies biomaterials for additive manufacturing, like the custom-printed prosthetics pictured above. 
Credit: Adobe Stock

Projects

Click the plus icon (+) below to learn about our projects in additive manufacturing of biomaterials. 

Additive Manufacturing of Ceramics

Additive manufacturing of ceramics seeks to facilitate the commercialization of ceramics AM via the concurrent development of new measurement approaches, characterization, and computational methods for ceramic materials. Read more. 

Project Leader: Russell Maier

Additive Manufacturing Fatigue and Fracture

Metal additive manufacturing is not used in fatigue and fracture critical applications despite industrial need. The goal of this project is to enable confident use of metal AM in critical applications through several methods. Read more.  

Project Leader: Nik Hrabe

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of AM titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) high-cycle fatigue fracture surfaces showing fatigue crack initiation at lack-of-fusion (LOF) defect (white arrow). Also shown on the same fracture surface are entrapped gas pores
Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of AM titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) high-cycle fatigue fracture surfaces showing fatigue crack initiation at lack-of-fusion (LOF) defect (white arrow).  Also shown on the same fracture surface are entrapped gas pores. Credit: Hrabe, IJF, 2017. 94: p. 202-210 

Biofabrication of Tissue Engineered Constructs

In the field of tissue engineering, 3D scaffolds and cells are often combined to yield constructs that are used as therapeutics to repair or restore tissue function in patients. Our project developed a noninvasive, label-free, 3D optical coherence tomography method to rapidly image large sample volumes to assess cell viability and distribution within scaffolds. Read more.

Project Leaders: Carl Simon & Greta Babakhanova

A hand in a purple glove turns a metal dial on a plate holding tiny vials of purple liquid.
Researchers used a noninvasive and label-free method called optical coherence tomography to assess the live cells in the 3D scaffold system. OCT is an imaging technique that uses light waves to take cross sectional images of a sample.
Credit: R. Wilson/NIST

Inkjet Printing and Precision Deposition

The ability to deposit small amounts of material in a highly controllable and precise fashion helps create test materials for trace detection methods for a variety of chemical compounds and aids instrument development. Material microdeposition can enable delivery of chemical compounds for health care purposes, e.g., vaccines, small molecules, and drugs. Read more.

Project Leader: Michael Verkouteren

Inkjet droplet on hydrophobic surface
Inkjet droplet on hydrophobic surface. Credit: NIST

Photopolymer Additive Manufacturing

NIST's goal is to support innovation in the Photopolymer Additive Manufacturing (PAM) industry by enabling unprecedented high-resolution, mechanically-precise vat photopolymerization via fundamental understanding informed by novel voxel and sub-voxel-scale characterization throughout all major stages of the printing process. Read more.

Project Leaders: Jason Killgore & Callie Higgins

Point-of-Care Pharmaceutical Manufacturing & Precision Medicine

Advancements in manufacturing technologies can aid the move from few rigid centralized pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities toward many agile distributed manufacturing and point-of-care (POC) manufacturing facilities to enable personalized and precision medicine. Read more.

Project Leaders: Thomas Forbes & Greg Gillen

Point-of-Care Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Demonstrative examples of manufactured pharmaceuticals at the point-of-care.
Credit: Thomas Forbes

Polymer Additive Manufacturing and Rheology

We develop instrumentation and methodologies for measurement of temperature and stress fields in polymeric materials and their real-time materials responses. We focus on measurements where national needs have been identified, such as plastics recycling and composite curing, and in emerging areas that represent sources of new U.S. manufacturing, such as additive manufacturing. Read more.

Project Leaders: Anthony Kotula & Jonathan Seppala

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News

Click the plus icon (+) below to explore news about our biomaterials additive manufacturing efforts. 

Nanocylinder Vibrations Help Quantify Polymer Curing for 3D Printing

In a step toward making more accurate and uniform 3D-printed parts such as personalized prosthetics and dental materials, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a method of measuring the rate at which microscopic regions of a liquid raw material harden into a solid plastic when exposed to light. Read more.

Plot graph shows dark purple block at left with areas growing lighter green to the right.
Colorized plot of the light-assisted curing of a polymer over five seconds, as measured with NIST’s custom atomic force microscope with a nanocylinder probe. Darker colors indicate a higher level of conversion from a liquid resin to a polymer. The magenta block at left represents the light fixture that initiates the reaction.
Credit: NIST
Manufacturing, Additive manufacturing, Materials, Metrology and Standards

Contacts

Additive Manufacturing Program Coordinator

Created November 13, 2024, Updated November 18, 2024