Birch Aquarium fits their loggerhead sea turtle with a 3D printed brace, filling the gap that’s been in her shell since 2014.

3D printed animal prostheses can be tricky. Customizing a plastic component to perfectly fit the hard and soft tissues of a unique living creature is no simple task. And the specific challenges are always different, depending on the body part in question.

For example, you might think replacing part of a sea turtle’s shell, an already solid structure, might be easy. But then, how do you model the underside?

That’s the task that was taken on by Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. Together with the Digital Media Lab at UC San Diego’s Library, they designed and 3D printed a brace to fill the gap in their loggerhead sea turtle’s shell.

Modeling the brace required a combination of CT and 3D scans. Putting the two together required a lot of work, but the result is a component that fits perfectly to the turtle’s shell.

Coming from Scott McAvoy, manager at the UC San Diego Library: “It’s amazing that our library can now provide these kinds of services. 3-D technology is getting so powerful and accessible, the possibilities seem endless.”

Given the need to accommodate further growth — up to 250 pounds — the part is actually quite complex. It consists of three rigid pieces ratchetted together by a plastic cable. In this way, the complete structure is both strong and flexible.

The Life of a Sea Turtle

Hopefully the installed brace will allow the loggerhead sea turtle to carry out the rest of her days in peace and quiet. Looking at her past, it certainly hasn’t always been that way.

When she was originally rescued from a cooling canal in a New Jersey power plant in 2013, she already had the gap in the lower right side of her shell. That, an abnormal spine curvature, and paralysis in her rear flippers all likely came from previous trauma.

After spending several weeks in the marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, NJ, she was finally transferred to Birch Aquarium. At that time, she weighed only 75 pounds, compared to her current 200.

According to Jenn Nero Moffatt, senior director of animal care at Birch, it’s the growth that’s led to problems.

“Without our intervention, the sea turtle could have gastro-intestinal and urogenital systems complications,” she said. “We teamed up with the Digital Media Lab at Geisel Library to create a brace that will prevent the shell from curving further downward and will promote more normal growth.”

Every day, more and more institutions are employing 3D printing. It’s nice to see the technology improving all our lives, even sea turtles, one piece at a time.

Source: Scripps Institution of Oceanography