Clean-HIP Processing for Additively Manufactured Medical Implants

The Hot-Isostatic Process (HIP) is an integral part of the post-processing of additively manufactured medical implants. It greatly increases components strength and fatigue life by densifying the parts under high temperatures and pressures and healing any internal porosities. This is critical for patient success in the long term.

Additive manufacturing has enabled the design of intricate porous structures on implants to promote bone ingrowth. During the HIP cycle, these structures can form an oxide scale or alpha casing from residual moisture in the HIP vessel which can be difficult to fully remove by further post processing techniques. Manufacturers combat this issue by wrapping the implants in different metal foils gettering the contaminants during the HIP cycle. This can be a costly and time-consuming process and does not always guarantee desired results creating an industry demand to develop a more viable and robust solution to this challenge.

Answering the call from industry, Quintus Technologies has now developed a new toolbox under the High-Pressure Heat treatment umbrella called Quintus Purus®, a combination of best practices in way of working with the HIP system, new equipment capabilities and fit for purpose oxygen getter cassettes. This concept promises the opportunity to reduce oxygen species in the HIP process by over 95%. The result is a path for significantly less part surface oxidation and contamination for alloys critical to the medical industry for high demand applications. This allows faster lead times and higher quality AM components for medical applications.