Electric field-driven microscale 3D printing of flexible thin-walled tubular mesh structures of molten polymers

• DOI: 10.1016/j.matdes.2022.111433
• Publication Date: 2022-11-26T14:29:40Z
• Authors: Zilong Peng; Mengjie Wang; Hao Lv; Junyuan Zhang; Yinan Li; Jinyin Wu; Shuailong Zhang; Fei Wang; Guangming Zhang; Xiaoyang Zhu; Lin Xu; Hongbo Lan
• Keywords: Microscale chemistry

Thin-walled tubular mesh structures are the basic form of scaffolds, such as vascular and nerve conduit stents, in tissue engineering. A novel electric field-driven microscale three-dimensional printing (EFD μ-3D printing) was proposed for manufacturing these molten polymers with high resolution. For on curved substrates, distributions field force substrates different curvature radii self-excited electrostatic were revealed via numerical simulations. The optimal process parameters EFD determined. To improve accuracy, a micro-area preset eccentricity strategy by reducing vertical angle jets. number cases have been carried out. It is shown that method effective micro-nano scale 3D structures. printed good flexibility; they can be restored to their original state after 8.9 % axial compression, an length 67 mm. Moreover, conformal variable stiffness thin-wall structure has achieved 28 mm, line diameter 80 μm, big end 8 small 4