Metal Additive Manufacturing Conference 2018

Additive manufacturing (AM) has developed into a promising technology allowing the parallel production of arbitrarily complex parts with high resolution. AM is especially well suited for applications which require individualized geometries. Therefore, AM shows great potential to be utilized in the field of digital dentistry where personalized and highly aesthetic parts (e.g. restorations) are demanded. Digital dentistry provides a large number of applications, involving metals as well as ceramics and polymers. This presentation will give an overview of the state of the art in digital dentistry. Applications in restorative dentistry, orthodontics and implantology will be covered, with a focus on processing and characterization of the relevant materials. A comparison with the most relevant AM technologies (stereolithography, selective laser melting, inkjet printing) will be given in terms of quality of the produced parts, mechanical properties of the obtained parts, throughput and cost per part.