Probabilistic finite element analysis of bespoke titanium veterinary implants

Abstract

This study analyses canine limb-sparing implants with an integrated lattice structure, manufactured in Ti-6Al-4V ELI alloy using Electron Beam Melting (EBM) technology. The research aim is to determine the technical risk associated with the implant through probabilistic numerical analysis. A series of boundary conditions are employed on the implants in order to investigate the robustness of the design. The output stress and strain values are then employed to further examine fatigue life parameters under cyclic loading of the implants. The probabilistic numerical analysis has successfully identified the location of a key failure mode (yield stress limit) and the modelling correlated to veterinary case-study observations. In regard to the lattice structure, it is shown that the structure does provide mechanical integrity to the implant assembly, but the geometry requires significant simplification while modelling. This is primarily due to: (a) the limitations of CAD tools in generating NURB surfaces from point cloud data, and (b) the node and element count associated with these small structures makes the model computationally expensive.