Our Research

Rapid protoyping - 3D printing

We use rapid prototyping techniques to design fixtures for mechanical testing, assess our implant designs as a part of an iterative design process, or to design pre-surgical planning aids for trauma and spine surgery.

We also use rapid prototyping to test out new designs for novel surgical implants for trauma and spine surgical applications.

We also investigate the potential to use 3D printing as an additive manufacturing technique to design novel, customizable implants.

3D bone modelling & finite element analysis (FEA)

We use image segmentation techniques typically using CT scanned images to create virtual models of bones ("digital twins"). 

This enables us to conduct vitual surgeries to assess the geometric fit of novel implant designs, or as a pre-cursor to conducting finite element analysis (FEA) studies.

Biomechanics testing

We conduct biomechanics testing using our Instron mechanical testing machines. We couple this with our digital image correlation (DIC) system and software to enable surface strain measurements during testing, which is important to validate our in silico testing models and results.

Python programming

We use Python programming as this can enable easy integration with robot operating systems (ROS2) for real-time data synchronization between data capture sources, and for integration into machine learning (ML) pipelines. For ML algorithms, our lab uses tensorflow.

Medical imaging analysis

In addition to working with CT, we also have access to other medical imaging such as X-ray and ultrasound imaging. Our work also involves developing novel imaging methods to improve fracture care.

Our engineered algorithms and tools enable orthopaedic surgeons to improve clinicial diagnosis and treatment outcomes.