Hunting for Medals with 3D Printing and Treed Filaments

Canoe and Surf: Two Italian athletes at the Paralympics and World Championships. Prostheses and guardians printed with TreeD Filaments materials by engineer Marco Avaro. Veronica Yoko Plebani went to the Paralympics in Rio. Fabrizio Passetti prepared for the World Championships in La Jolla, California. These are two Italian athletes who already have a rich collection of achievements and trophies, and they share one characteristic: they use prostheses 3D printed by biomedical engineer Marco Avaro, using TreeD Filaments materials. In his laboratory Avaro works with a material derived from Carbonium, an highly technical material developed specifically for this application. Veronica practices canoeing, Fabrizio surfing. “For Veronica I made a brace for the hand – explains Avaro- while Fabrizio needed a prosthesis in extremely high-performance carbon, capable of withstanding even considerable stresses“. Both athletes are thrilled with the result and are tangible evidence of the extraordinary results that can be achieved thanks to 3D printing. In the orthopedic laboratory Del Bene Fabio in Trieste, the engineer is working virtually non-stop and with TreeD Filaments he is able to create increasingly sophisticated prosthetics. “At the base there are high-quality, high performing filaments, made by Treed Filaments, and WASP printers. Now 3D printing has become something structural, calculated and extremely precise. We are printing parts with tolerances of two tenths of a millimeter.” It is important to note that a prosthesis is a tailored medical device and is subject to a whole series of rules and characteristics, based on prescriptions written by qualified physicians. Obviously we carried out a series of trial and error.The filaments are certified and in this period the specifications are being written.