Mieszczanek Pawel, Eggert Sebastian, Corke Peter, Hutmacher Dietmar W
Centre in Transformative Biomimetics in Bioengineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
HardwareX. 2021 Nov 11;10:e00246. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2021.e00246. eCollection 2021 Oct.
Melt electrowriting (MEW) is an additive manufacturing (AM) technology with the ability to fabricate complex designs with high-resolution. The utility of MEW is studied in many fields including tissue engineering and soft robotics. However, current MEW hardware offers only basic functionality and is often designed and built in-house. This affects results replication across different MEW devices and slows down the technological advancement. To address these issues, we present an automated MEW platform with real-time process parameter monitoring and control. We validate the developed platform by demonstrating the ability to accurately print polymer structures and successfully measure and adjust parameters during the printing process. The platform enables the collection of large volumes of data that can be subsequently used for further analysis of the system. Ultimately, the concept will help MEW to become more accessible for both research laboratories and industry and allow advancing the technology by leveraging the process monitoring, control and data collection.
熔体电写（MEW）是一种增材制造（AM）技术，能够制造具有高分辨率的复杂设计。MEW的实用性在包括组织工程和软体机器人在内的许多领域都有研究。然而，当前的MEW硬件仅提供基本功能，并且通常是内部设计和制造的。这影响了不同MEW设备之间结果的复制，并减缓了技术进步。为了解决这些问题，我们提出了一个具有实时过程参数监测和控制功能的自动化MEW平台。我们通过展示准确打印聚合物结构以及在打印过程中成功测量和调整参数的能力，来验证所开发的平台。该平台能够收集大量数据，这些数据随后可用于系统的进一步分析。最终，这一概念将有助于MEW在研究实验室和工业界更易于使用，并通过利用过程监测、控制和数据收集来推动该技术的发展。
