INNOVATION
As a result, Materialise mentored the Bennett Engineering Design Solutions’ team on how to apply this new technology to future projects. A year later, the consultancy had developed over 30 products for many industries using additive manufacturing upon the request of clients, who were just as excited about the technology as they were. The challenge for medical device development still remains the same; how to successfully produce low volume parts, manufactured at a reasonable cost and delivered to satisfy short time scales. In the past three years, this technology has enabled its team to deliver more effective bespoke designs in shorter timescales than was previously thought possible. The benefits are shown clearly in a recent project to develop a bespoke clamp that has been designed to support cardioplegia sets.
Case study – a bespoke 3D printed cardioplegia clamp
Bennett Engineering Design Solutions was approached by the head of clinical perfusion science for the Trust, Michael Whitehorne, late last year to help develop a bespoke solution to support the use of cardioplegia sets in its operating theatres. The Trust had been pleased with the quality of a pressure gauge holder developed previously by the design team and wanted a clamp based on similar principles. John Bennett, director, Bennett Engineering Design Solutions, explained: “The clamps that were available at the time for holding the cardioplegia set’s heat exchangers, which cool down the patient’s blood during cardiac surgery, were no longer meeting the Trust’s requirements. The clamps
simply didn’t secure the heat exchangers well enough; they could also be slow and difficult to use.” The Trust required a complete design rethink; it needed a solution that would attach easily to standard masts and instrument stands as the heat exchanger needed to be quickly changed in an emergency, easy to clean and suitable for sterilisation. It also needed to be possible to adjust the orientation of the heat exchanger through 360˚ so blood could be run without interruption and the set’s tubes would not be strained. Bennett continued: “The challenge with the design was to create the right geometry to satisfy the Trust’s requirements. The initial prototype needed to be improved to make the changeover quicker. Adjusting the geometry of the catch took two iterations. We also needed to minimise the number of parts required, to ensure ease of use, but being aesthetically pleasing too. The clamp, for example, features an over centre clip finger for the attachment so the removal of the heat exchanger is simple and intuitive to use. “We chose to develop our design using 3D printing as we believed it offered greater flexibility in the design geometry, enabling us to create more organic shapes. This was then followed by use of the material Alumide to deliver a tough, highly professional ‘look
The cardioplegia clamp, although a bespoke design, can also be adapted.
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and feel’ to the end product.”
Alumide is a nylon and grey aluminium powder that is a very versatile material due to its composition. It provides both lightness and strength, is cost effective to print and can be sealed for cleaning and sterilisation - ideal for certain types of medical equipment. The completed design used standard components along with 3D printed parts to achieve a simple and cost effective solution. By adopting 3D printing, complicated geometry and shapes could be included at no extra cost, allowing the design team far greater design freedom to deliver improved aesthetics.
No manufacturing tools were required, which helped to ease this critical design update and change of parts during the product development process. It took just eight weeks to complete and has been in use by the Trust since June 2016. It now benefits from a bespoke design solution, rather than the generic clamps produced in high volume by heat exchanger manufacturers.
The cardioplegia clamp, although a bespoke
design, can also be adapted to be used in any operating theatre by the expert team at Bennett Engineering Design Solutions.
Innovation
Bennett notes: “3D printing has had a huge impact on the medical field, particularly with the freedom of design it delivers, allowing for the easy production of organic and custom shapes to adapt to the human body as never before.
“In all our medical device projects cost has remained a key driver; along with low batch numbers and even one-off designs,
SEPTEMBER 2017
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