Development of a piston-actuated 3D bio-printer with performance prediction system for the reliable printing of tubular structures

3D bio-printing is a promising approach for creating tubular structures within the human body by precisely controlling the distribution of cells. While several 3D bio-printers have been developed for printing tubular structures, achieving reliable and repeatable construction of effective human tubular structures remains a challenge. This paper presents a piston-actuated 3D bio-tubular structures printer that uses a rotary rod-support printing method and a printing performance prediction system. The printing performance prediction system is based on a two-phase flow computational fluid dynamics model that simulates the tubular structure forming process and provides optimal printing setup parameters, such as extrusion nozzle movement speed, nozzle height, and rod rotating speed. Experimental testing has validated the performance prediction system, which achieved a fair prediction accuracy with an average error of around 10%. The proposed bio-printer and prediction system have the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of tubular structure printing for various biomedical applications.