SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will determine the technical and commercial feasibility of using the rapid freeze prototyping (RFP) and jet model making (JMM) processes to produce ice and wax patterns used in investment casting to fabricate metal castings for dental restorations. The Phase I effort is to develop a solid freeform fabrication based dental reconstruction system that can be used by dental labs to produce high-quality crowns, bridges, and implant structures rapidly and cost-effectively from digital images and computer-aided design data. The commercial potential of this project will be more precise dental restorations costing less. In 1999 this market was estimated to be about $2.5 billion with an expected annual growth between 10-15 percent.

This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase II project will develop and optimize the Rapid Freeze Prototyping (RFP) technology, producing ice patterns used in investment casting to fabricate dental castings for crowns, bridges, implant-retailed restorations and other prostheses, as well as to integrate the developed RFP technology with commercial digital imaging and computer-aided design technologies into an Internet CAD/CAM dental restoration system.