Ph.D. position: Surface finishing of porous shoulder implants produced by additive manufacturing

You will become a member of the MnM² lab (https://mnm2.odoo.com/) of the Department of Materials Engineering at KU Leuven, under supervision of prof. J. Everaerts as promotor, supported by prof. Bey Vrancken at the Department of Mechanical Engineering as co-promotor. The MnM² lab aims to develop novel methodologies in order to study the mechanical and fracture behaviour of metals and to enable mechanical characterization of small samples such as coatings, thin layers and nanoelectronics in a range of environmental conditions.

This Ph.D. position is offered through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network 'CUSTOM'. Vacancies for other Ph.D. topics within this network can be found on the project's website.
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Project

The CUSTOM project is aMarie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network thatunites three core disciplines (design, manufacturing, and testing) towards the development of a next generation of patient-specific shoulder implants. The number of shoulder replacements is projected to increase by 300-400% between 2020 and 2040. With the current technology, 10% of those artificial shoulder implants will fail within the first 10 years of service, mainly due to soft tissue failure, infection, and implant loosening. CUSTOM focuses on combining (1) computational tools that allow patient-specific design, (2) additive manufacturing to realize the custom, complex designs and structures and their further postprocessing to incorporate multi-functionality, and (3) blended in-silico and experimental testing to reduce the burden on experimental testing for certification. In doing so, CUSTOM can address the major failure mechanisms of current shoulder implants and improve their overall functionality and longevity.

This Ph.D. topic of the CUSTOM project addresses an important challenge in the development of porous shoulder implants produced via additive manufacturing (AM), which is improving the surface finish. AM-produced structures often have high surface roughness and semi-attached particles, which is incompatible with a safe use of implants with optimal properties. In this PhD project, you will focus on three key objectives: (1) to develop successful chemical and electrochemical cleaning strategies for porous titanium structures produced via AM, (2) to enable internal surface roughness characterization of such structures via microfocus X-ray computed tomography (micro-CT) and statistical analysis and (3) to identify the impact of the internal and external surface roughness on mechanical properties, particularly fatigue resistance, via machine learning approaches.

This doctoral project also foresees three secondments, each for the duration of three months, during which you will have the opportunity to visit partner institutions to perform experiments and to share knowledge across disciplines. This includes a secondment at Semmelweis University (Budapest, Hungary) to perform cytotoxicity testing of samples treated with different surface finishing procedures, a secondment at the University of Udine (Italy) to simulate the impact of altered surface roughness and roughness parameters on fatigue performance, and secondment at Amnovis (Aarschot, Belgium) to compare the developed finishing techniques with existing industrial processes.

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Offer

We offer:

• Adoctoral scholarship (fully funded) and a Ph.D. degree in Engineering Science if successful.
• A highly specialized doctoral training in an international environment at a top European university.
• Extensive training and networking activities via the MSCA Doctoral Network 'CUSTOM' project, which involves a total of 16 doctoral candidates.
• A living allowance, mobility allowance and, if applicable,family, long-term leave and special needs allowances.
• The opportunity to participate in research collaborations and international conferences.

https://mnm2.odoo.com/

Interested?

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