Quick-Delivery Mold Fabricated via Stereolithography to Enhance Manufacturing Efficiency.

The ever-growing demand for reducing costs and decreasing the time to market in today's plastics industry makes rapid tooling and rapid prototyping highly researched areas. Stereolithography (SLA)-manufactured injection mold inserts make it possible to produce prototype parts rapidly and cost-effectively. To utilize SLA in the injection molding industry, two steps have to be considered.

Graphene Hybrid Inner Ear Organoid with Enhanced Maturity.

Inner ear organoids (IEOs) are 3D structures grown , which can mimic the complex cellular structure and function of the inner ear. IEOs are potential solutions to problems related to inner ear development, disease modeling, and drug delivery. However, current approaches in generating IEOs using chemical factors have a few limitations, resulting in unpredictable outcomes.

Development of the multi-directional ablation process using the femtosecond laser to create a pattern on the lateral side of a 3D microstructure.

Two-photon stereolithography (TPS) is widely used for the fabrication of various three-dimensional (3D) structures with sub-micron fabrication resolution in a single fabrication process. However, TPS is unsuitable for microstructures with fine-hole patterns. The laser ablation process can be easily drilled, or made holes in various materials.

Design and evaluation of additive manufactured highly efficient inclined-wing type continuous mixer.

We develop a novel milli-scale mixer (tilted-wings mixing unit, TWM unit) based on the design for additive manufacturing (DfAM). The proposed tilted-wings mixer has basically designed to have three separate wings that split and combine fluids in order to mix together effectively. Its structure is simple for easy fabrication: two major design parameters of angle among three wings and connecting angle between tilted-unit, which are optimized using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis.

Sequential process optimization for a digital light processing system to minimize trial and error.

In additive manufacturing, logical and efficient workflow optimization enables successful production and reduces cost and time. These attempts are essential for preventing fabrication problems from various causes. However, quantitative analysis and integrated management studies of fabrication issues using a digital light processing (DLP) system are insufficient.

The effect of 3-D printed polylactic acid scaffold with and without hyaluronic acid on bone regeneration.

Background: Three- dimensional (3D) technology has been suggested to overcome several limitations in guided bone regeneration (GBR) procedures because 3D-printed scaffolds can be easily molded to patient-specific bone defect site. This study aimed to investigate the effect of 3-D printed polylactic acid (PLA) scaffolds with or without hyaluronic acid (HA) in a rabbit calvaria model.

Methods: A calvaria defect with a diameter of 15 mm was created in 30 New Zealand white rabbits.

Optimization of the Projection Microstereolithography Process for a Photocurable Biomass-Based Resin.

Biomass materials, an important source of chemical feedstocks, could replace fossil fuels as a resource in the future. The chemical feedstocks from biomass materials are used in many medical and pharmaceutical products and in fuels, chemicals, and functional materials. Biomass materials are expected to be used in biomedical engineering fields, especially due to their low biotoxicity.

Additive manufacturing of the core template for the fabrication of an artificial blood vessel: the relationship between the extruded deposition diameter and the filament/nozzle transition ratio.

An artificial blood vessel with a tubular structure was additively manufactured via fused deposition modeling (FDM) starting from a single strand of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) filament coated with a specific thickness of biocompatible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), followed by removal of the inner core via hydrogen peroxide leaching under sonication. In particular, we examined the relationship between the extruded deposition diameter and the filament migration speed/nozzle control speed (referred to as the filament/nozzle transition ratio), which is almost independent of the extruded deposition flow rate due to the weak die-swelling and memory effects of the extruded PVA arising from its intrinsically low viscoelasticity. The chemical stability of the PDMS during sonication in the hydrogen peroxide solution was then determined by spectroscopic techniques.

Simulative design in macroscale for prospective application to micro-catheters.

In this paper, a motion-transforming element is applied to the development of a new catheter device. The motion-transforming element structure allows a reduction of linear movement and converts linear movement to rotational movement. The simulative design of micro-catheters is based on a proposed structure called the Operating Mini Station (OMS).

3D Hierarchical, Pyramid-Based Cancer Cell Chip for the Detection of Anticancer Drug Effects.

In this study, we developed a novel three-dimensional (3D) cancer cell chip using a three-floor hierarchical 3D pyramid structure (3D pyramid) to simulate 3D tumor cell growth in vitro and to detect anticancer drugs. The proposed 3D pyramidbased cancer cell chip offered substantial advantages for the agglomerate formation of tumor cells, in which cells could be maintained as tumor spheroids for up to 3 weeks. Soon after HeLa tumor cells adhered to the micropatterned pillar sidewalls, they were suspended between the pillars based on scanning electron microscopy images.

Photosensitive functionalized surface-modified quantum dots for polymeric structures via two-photon-initiated polymerization technique.

In this paper, the surface modification of CdSe- and CdZnS-based quantum dots (QDs) with a functional silica shell is reported. Functionalized silica shells are prepared by two routes: either by ligand exchange and a modified Stöber process or by a miniemulsion process with amphiphilic poly(oxyethylene) nonylphenylether also know as Igepal CO-520 (IG) as oligomeric amphiphile and modified silica precursors. The polymerizable groups on the functionalized silica shell allow covalent bonding to a polymer matrix and prevent demixing during polymerization and crosslinking.

Rotational elastic micro joint based on helix-augmented cross-spring design for large angular movement.

A new type of micro-joint based on an elastic design concept is proposed for large rotational movement. The proposed new 3D micro-joint was designed based on a cross-spring that has precise and reliable motion. However, the cross-spring has a limitation in the range of rotational angle.