CIINCINNATI — An 11-year-old gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo has been fitted with a specially designed titanium cast after she had surgery to repair a broken arm.

The new cast was created by GE Additive and replaces the previous, less gorilla-behavior resistant cast that Gladys had been wearing.

“She was pretty hard on the other cast,” Mike Wenninger, Cincinnati Zoo’s director of animal health, said in a press release posted to the zoo’s website.  “We’re hoping that this one will be more gorilla proof.”

The release notes that this is actually the first 3D-printed titanium cast in the world, and GE Additive’s advanced lead engineer, Shannon Morman, said in the release that their team had met over the weekend to come up with designs.

“The following Monday we scanned the original cast to create a 3D model and were ready to start printing the same day,” Morman said in the release. “The titanium cast took around 65 hours to print, and we were able to deliver it to the Zoo team in under a week.”

The gorilla is being monitored while she wears the cast for the next four weeks. The zoo’s manager of primates, Victoria McGee, said in the release that Gladys is “tolerating it better” than the first one.

“She’s been locomoting comfortably, adapting her movements to the cast carefully and safely,” McGee said in the release. “Before the titanium cast, we were very limited on the spaces Gladys could safely be in. With this addition, Gladys can “graduate” to additional behind-the-scenes spaces that will allow her to have more choice and exploration throughout the day.”