The internship will contribute to an applied research project focused on the design and mechanical characterization of implantable medical devices. The internship will be structured around two main tasks:

• Study and development of a 3D-printed mold for the fabrication of silicone prototypes.

• Mechanical characterization of cochlear electrodes through insertion tests in synthetic cochleae and bending tests.

Development of a 3D-printed mold for silicone casting: The objective is to design and evaluate a mold produced via 3D printing, intended for silicone prototype manufacturing. The study will consider several influencing parameters:

• Selection of printing resins,

• 
  3D printing parameters (SLA technology),

• 
  Post-processing procedures,

• Silicone molding conditions (pressure, temperature, curing time).

A design of experiments (DoE) will be established to assess the impact of these parameters on the final prototype quality. Tooling will be designed using Creo (within the Windchill environment), manufactured via SLA 3D printing, post-processed, and tested in the prototyping lab.

Accountability 2 

Mechanical characterization of cochlear electrodes: This task aims to evaluate the mechanical behavior of implantable electrodes and provide input data for FEM simulations. The intern will:

• Design a custom test bench adapted to the samples using Creo,

• Manufacture the test bench using 3D printing,

• Conduct mechanical tests (insertion into synthetic cochleae, bending) using a tensile/compression testing machine,

• Share results with the FEM simulation team.

• All tests will be conducted in the mechanical testing lab.