Medical & health

The medical and health fields demand strict adherence to manufacturer’s specifications in order to ensure the reliability and superior quality of finished products.

From surgical tools, to prostheses and vital ventilator components, Bodycote is uniquely suited to handle this important work, delivering thermal processing at the highest global standards, with relevant accreditations.

Dental

Like any other medical tool or device, dental tools and appliances are manufactured to strict guidelines to ensure correct operation. The materials and processes utilised require specialised thermal processing solutions.

Bodycote provides various vacuum-based treatments for use in dental and orthodontic component manufacture. To maintain the required surface finish, vacuum hardening or vacuum ageing is used to produce the required material properties. For attaching carbide inserts vacuum brazing is utilised. Many dental items are also treated by ferritic nitrocarburising ensuring a hard-wearing surface and the ability to withstand numerous sterilisation cycles.

• Orthodontic cutters
• Tip inserts
• Clips

Medical implants

Most artificial implants are subjected to loads, either static or repetitive, and this condition requires an excellent combination of strength and ductility.

Implants are subject to some degree of wear and corrosion in the body. These implants must be incredibly strong, biocompatible, and able to last the lifetime of the patient. A combination of heat treatment, hot isostatic pressing, and coating makes this possible.

Many medical implants are made from cast cobalt chromium which require biomedical coating to promote bonding between the implant and body tissue, then hot isostatic pressing to remove eliminate porosity, improve fatigue life and enhance the bonding of the coating. Solution and ageing heat treatment is also used to strengthen the implant.

• Hip implants
• Knee joints
• Maxillofacial implants
• Spinal fusion implants
• Stents
• Cases
• Shields
• Capacitor cans
• Battery contacts
• Bone screws and plates

Surgical tools

It goes without saying that the quality and reliability of surgical tools are of prime importance. A defective tool during a medical procedure could have dire consequences. Many surgical tools require vacuum hardening to strengthen the tools whilst maintaining the fine surface finish. In addition, vacuum brazing is used to attach carbide cutting medium to surgical saws and other implements.

The advantages of stainless steel make it a material of choice for surgical tools and implants. Yet, design teams often struggle with issues of galling, insufficient surface hardness, and wear resistance. Bodycote’s proprietary S³P processes provide surface hardening that increases key mechanical properties of stainless steel without sacrificing its corrosion resistance, ductility, and capacity for cleaning and sterilisation.

• Clamps
• Sidelock
• Modular tap
• Bone saw
• Cutting guides
• Surgical needles

Medical machinery and appliances

A wide variety of medical machinery and appliances require heat treatments and specialist thermal processing technologies to extend operational lifetimes and enhance their performance.

Stainless steel is the material of choice for many medical appliance components such as pumps, plungers and internal gears, due to its strength and inherent corrosion resistance. Standard heat treatments can affect the natural corrosion resistance of stainless steel, however Bodycote’s proprietary Kolsterising^® process significantly increases surface hardness, whilst enhancing wear resistance and eliminating galling, without affecting its corrosion resistance.

Bodycote’s ion implantation treatment provides adhesive wear resistance, improved friction coefficient, and anti-sticking effect, and can treat not only metals and alloys but also rubbers and polymer materials, making it an ideal treatment for medical components.

• Seals
• Injection pumps
• Scanners
• Ventilators
• Pain relief delivery systems
• Nebulisers
• External orthopaedic appliances
• Blood analysis