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Mouthguards are used for protection to prevent and reduce injury to teeth. Among various types of
mouthguards, custom-fitted ones provide the best protection. However due to their high manufacturing
time and cost and unsuitability to be designed parametrically, existing custom-fitted mouthguards are
not practical enough. 3D printing technology offers new possibilities to overcome these issues. For
this purpose, a methodology is developed in which a parametrically designed mouthguard is to be
created using data from a 3D scanned teeth model of a person to manufacture by a 3D printer. Coronal
and apical boundary curves for both buccal and palatal sides of teeth are offset away from the teeth
surface to create the outer surface of the mouthguard between these curves and surface of the scanned
teeth are used for the inner surface of the mouthguard. The 3D printing techniques and materials that
can be used to manufacture the highly customized parametric mouthguard design are investigated. The
performance of the designed mouthguard model is investigated using finite element (FE) analysis
under the injury loading conditions.
International Congress on 3D Printing (Additive Manufacturing) Technologies and Digital Industry
3D-PTC2019
Recep M. Görgülüarslan
Selçuk Uzel
Lattice structures, which consist of interconnected strut members in micro- and millimeter scales,
recently gained popularity to attain a lightweight structure while maintaining the high specific
mechanical properties such as strength and energy absorption. However, the application of lattice
structures for crash box designs has been rarely reported for 3D printing. The lattice cell
configurations used for designs are also standard configurations. This study presents a design
methodology that first generates a lightweight lattice cell design using a discrete topology
optimization process. The crash box geometry is then modeled using the designed lattice cells. Non-
linear compression simulations are performed to investigate the energy absorption capability of the
lattice designs by considering Nylon12 material fabricated by Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing technique.
The results are compared with the existing literature for validation. It has been observed that the
topology optimized lattice structures have good potential to be used as energy absorption devices
when fabricated by 3D printing.
International Congress on 3D Printing (Additive Manufacturing) Technologies and Digital Industry
3D-PTC2019
Recep M. Görgülüarslan
O. Utku Güngör
Saltuk Yıldız
Erdem Erem