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Impact behaviour of 3D printed cellular structures for mouthguard applications

Abstract:
Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate (EVA) is the most popular material for manufacturing mouthguards. However, EVA mouthguards are problematic, for example inconsistent thicknesses across the mouthguard. Additive manufacturing provides a promising solution to this problem, as it can manufacture mouthguards with a greater precision. This paper compares the energy dissipation of EVA, the current material used for mouthguards, to various designs of a 3D printed material, some of which contain air cells. Impact testing was carried out at three different strain rates. The Split-Hopkinson bar was used for medium and high strain rate tests, and an Instron test rig was used for low strain rate testing. The best performing design dissipated 25% more energy than EVA in the medium and high strain rate testing respectively while the low strain rate testing was inconclusive. This research has shown that additive manufacturing provides a viable method of manufacturing mouthguards. This opens up the opportunity for embedding electronics/sensors into additive manufactured mouthguards.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Files:
Publisher copy:
10.1038/s41598-022-08018-1

Authors


More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MPLS
Department:
Engineering Science
Role:
Author
More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MPLS
Department:
Engineering Science
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0001-7306-2630


Publisher:
Springer Nature
Journal:
Scientific Reports More from this journal
Volume:
12
Article number:
4020
Publication date:
2022-03-07
Acceptance date:
2022-02-28
DOI:
EISSN:
2045-2322
Pmid:
35256721


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
1244015
Local pid:
pubs:1244015
Deposit date:
2022-06-25

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