Complexity Analysis in Additive Manufacturing for the Production of Tissue Engineering Constructs

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a process of making a Three-Dimensional (3D) solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model that is used for both prototyping and distributed manufacturing with applications in many fields, such as dental and medical industries and biotech (human tissue replacement). AM refers to technologies that create objects through a sequential layering process. AM processes have several primary areas of complexity that may not be measured precisely, due to uncertain situations. Therefore, this chapter reports an analytical model for evaluating process complexity that takes into account uncertain situations and additive manufacturing process technologies. The model is able to rank AM processes based on their relative complexities. An illustrative example for several processes is demonstrated in order to present the application of the model.