Medical Implants
The combination of pre-sintering and HIPping or direct powder consolidation is producing high quality prosthetic components for the medical market.
The main functional criteria for artificial implants are extremely low friction and high wear resistance. The HIP process eliminates the porosity in pre-sintered materials and achieves 100% fully dense properties in powder consolidation to improve the tensile ductility, the fatigue strength and the polishability required for successful joint replacement. Over the last few years, a wide variety of metal, ceramic and composite materials have been introduced into medical implants to improve and extend their life in service.
