Abstract
Because of the increasing number of plastic surgery in Japan, hard tissue implants, especially, custom-made one, are required by the market. However, two issues have to be considered. Appropriate design for custom-made production needs preliminary operation, which is not easily accepted by the patients. Furthermore, porous ceramics are regarded as suitable material for hard tissue implants which grow into the tissue to become compatible, but their fragile features are not suitable for mechanical processing. We are proposing a new solution to this problem, and it enables us to mechanical processing on porous ceramics. The study focuses on a virtual manufacturing approach to hard tissue implants made of porous ceramics. The paper presents the overview of the idea behind the approach and shows some of the key technologies.
