Reece Oosterbeek BE ME PhD MIMMM AFHEA

Professor Oosterbeek is an Associate Professor of Engineering Science, and a member of the Solid Mechanics and Materials Engineering Group. His research focuses on developing new materials for medical implants, utilising approaches such as novel mechanical metamaterials and bioresorbable composites. Reece obtained BE(Hons) and ME degrees in Chemical and Materials Engineering from the University of Auckland, followed by a PhD in Materials Science and Metallurgy (2020) from the University of Cambridge.

In Cambridge Reece was a member of Trinity College and his doctoral work, funded by a Woolf Fisher Scholarship, focused on bioresorbable polymer-glass composites for medical implants. Following this Reece moved to Imperial College London for post-doctoral research, where he began working on additively manufactured metal lattice materials for orthopaedic implants in the Biomechanics Group. In 2022 he joined the department as a Departmental Lecturer, before being appointed to his current role in 2023, where he is developing new mechanical metamaterials and bioresorbable materials for advanced medical implants.

Reece's research aims to develop new materials for load-bearing medical implant devices. He aims to design new mechanical metamaterials with unprecedented mechanical properties, targeted at specific medical applications, by utilising state-of-the-art additive manufacturing techniques. By combining this with bioresorbable materials with controllable degradation behaviour, he hopes to achieve close control of the mechanical properties of medical implant materials, and their evolution over their lifetime.

Relevant techniques: Additive manufacturing (esp. LPBF), micro-CT, static mechanical and fatigue testing, surface treatment, SEM, XRD, polymer/glass/ceramic/composite processing, DSC/TGA, degradation testing

Below is a list of suggested projects, this is not exhaustive so if you have another project in mind or would like to explore potential projects, please contact me. These projects do not have guaranteed funding; fully-funded projects are advertised separately here and on the departmental Research Studentships page.

• Fatigue and degradation in bioresorbable lattice materials. Porous, structured, lattice materials made from biodegradable materials are of interest for temporary medical implants. This project will investigate the mechanics of fatigue in lattice materials, the interaction of this process with long-term material degradation, and methods for improving fatigue life through structural/material design. This will involve both experimental work and development of theoretical modelling approaches.
• Mechanics and degradation of additively manufactured foams. Incorporation of gas-releasing foaming agents in 3D printing enables tuning of material density across a component. This project will develop filament- and/or powder-based additive manufacturing methods for foaming materials, focusing on bioresorbable polymers. The behaviour of printed foam structures, including hierarchical porosity, functional gradients, and metamaterial structures will be explored in terms of material mechanics and long-term biodegradation.
• Manufacturing complex components from bioresorbable composites using powder bed fusion. Powder bed fusion (PBF) is a 3D printing technique that enables production of highly intricate and detailed structures such as mechanical metamaterial lattices. Such systems are often optimised for a small set of materials like Nylon, rather than the variety of bioresorbable materials used for biodegradable medical implants. This project will develop heuristic or material-property based algorithms to rapidly optimise printing parameters for new combinations of bioresorbable composite materials.
• Water absorption under mechanical load in bioresorbable particulate composites. The interaction with water is essential to the degradation process of bioresorbable composites. Despite this the factors that govern absorption in particulate composites (diffusion, interfacial wicking, component hydrophilicity) are not well understood. This project will use experimental and modelling approaches to understand the water absorption behaviour of polymer-ceramic particulate composites, and the influence of external loading on this process.
• A 3D printed, bioresorbable osteotomy wedge. Osteotomy is a surgical procedure used to correct the mechanical axis of a joint and prevent osteoarthritis. Currently bone grafts are often used to fill this space and provide mechanical support, however a synthetic, bioresorbable replacement would be highly advantageous. This project will be undertaken in alongside a collaborating surgeon, and will aim to develop a suitable prototype device, considering mechanical support and long-term degradation.