EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF PROCESS PARAMETERS ON 64 SLICE SPIRAL CT SCANNER OF MEDICAL MODELS

Abstract

Rapid Prototyping (RP) is one of the advanced manufacturing methods to develop medical models. These models are generated by 3-Dimensional (3D) Computer Aided Design (CAD) model using Computed Tomography (CT) images. One of the advanced CT scanners to capture the large volume of tissues in shorter scan time is 64 slice spiral CT scanner. While developing these medical models, dimensional and volumetric errors occur due to Beam Hardening (BH) effect. This work has led to explore the influence of various CT Image acquisition parameters on the dimensional and volumetric errors, which are evaluated experimentally. A L9 orthogonal array and signal to noise ratio are applied to study performance characteristics of CT image acquisition parameters like tube voltage, tube current and pitch. The experimental results are analyzed by using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method and significant factors are identified. In this work, it has been concluded that there is a reduction of dimensional error from 1.43 mm to 0.52 mm and volumetric error from 6793 mm3 to 3892 mm3