Objective
TECUS is a precompetitive research PROJECT scheduled in two years. The main objective is to develop a new technology to cast Ti. The project is divided in seven workpackages, including the Project Management and the Exploitation and Dissemination activities. There is an increasing demand of Titanium implants and external dental fixtures due to the ageing population. To supply this demand there are commercially available several outdated technologies unable to cope with the reliability and reproducibility required for any industrial process. This obliges the dental laboratories to face extremely low yielding and high re-work of the produced fixtures. The new technology proposed in this project will solve this problem: it will be formed by the most suitable melting and casting technologies for titanium, "skull melting" and "centrifugal casting", and will be fitted with the required measurement systems, electronic controls, automation, and registration of data. The following technical developments will be approached:
1) A MELTING process with a novel induction device to avoid melt contamination from the crucible.
2) A CENTRIFUGAL casting unit for ensuring porosity free castings,
3) INTEGRATION of Melting and Casting units,
4) ELECTRONIC CONTROL, by the temperature of the metal,
5) AUTOMATION of the process to ensure the production of reliable and reproducible components.
6) A CODE OF BEST PRACTICE for the casting of titanium with the new technology will be also developed to make a friendly process which will not required high skill personnel to obtain excellent titanium castings.
The target price for a subsequent machine working with this technology is in the range of 25-45 Keuros. The development of the new technology will drastically reduce the re-work and scrap of the dental laboratories, presently around 50%, to lower than 15%. It will ensure excellent metallurgical quality, and will be reproducible and traceable...
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftware
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrytransition metals
- social sciencessociologyindustrial relationsautomation
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologyimplants
Call for proposal
FP6-2002-SME-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
COOPERATIVE -Coordinator
SAN SEBASTIAN
Spain