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Hello,
I need to simulate a 3d printed artey for a school project.
I’m looking for a specific 3d printable material I can use to mimic a human artery as closely as possible. Also I need acces to the hyperelastic properties of the material, a stress-strain relationship.
Anyone who can help me with this? :slight_smile:

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@Marijnw I am very interested to see if that’s open for consumer market already! That sounds very interesting. Did you find anything during your research yet?

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Could this help?

http://www.trideus.be/en/recreus-filaflex-red.html

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My first choice go would be toward red ninjafex. But I imagine the perfect filament would be stretching like an elastic, have some transparency(?), feel like jelly… Am I right?

Ninjaflex would be red, opaque, and elastic. To my knowledge, there is nothing hyperelastic yet on the market :slight_smile:

Could you say more about what kind of behaviour you would expect? Would you run “fake blood” inside?

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For now we are running some computer simulations using some silicone rubber properties, not yet with a 3D printable material, which could take personalised stenting/grafting to a next level.

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Thanks! I’m looking into it.

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Since there are some silicone rubbers out there on the 3dprinting market, I was hoping to encounter something with hyperelastic behaviour. Our main concern would be to mimic the compliance/stiffness of an artery, transparency / touch are none of our concern yet. The goal is to be able to make a physical replica of an artery which can be mechanicaly tested under loading of a stent + blood pressure. 3D printing could make this a personalized aproach by converting patient scans into indentical physical test specimens.
The first step would be moddeling this material/artery using finite elements, simulating blood pressure.

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Hi there !

The best choise would be to go with Ninjaflex, i think. This is a fairly common flexible material that is very elastic and though.

Regarding your hyperelasticity I’d like to know, how much elasticity you want to have (assuming you have a 10cm long arterly, how long should it bend).

I’m absolutely not into medicine or biology so I have no idea on how big your desired print should be, could you give an estimation ?

Also the artery will be hollow since you wan to fill it with liquids for pressure estimations, right ?

Could you estimate, how thick the complete artery will be (outer diameter) and how thick the wall will be (alternatively you could tell me the inner diameter).

Ninjaflex can elongate to up to 400%, but that only counts for smaller pieces, larger (and thicker) prints will more likely break along a layer when stressed (meaning you should expect elasticity up to 300% before you risk a break in the model), however the normal elasticity of printed Ninjaflex is around 250% (just the 1,75mm diameter filament) when you’d pull on it with bare hands.

Ninjaflex has good layer to layer bonding and is therefore watertight (a required feature).

Although I currently have only white Ninjaflex in stock I can get my hands very quickly on any other color (there’s low demand for Ninjaflex, so I only buy other colors on demand, keeping 12 spools (colors) each at 60€ in stock would be an useless investment).

Contact me if you want more information about the materials and the possibilities to print this all. By the way I’m located in Germany so you wouldn’t have to worry about expensive shipment. You could also just comment this post, but I want to avoid giving price estimations etc. in public chats, so if possible please stick to one of the two contact methods listed below.

Contact information:

3dHubs link: https://www.3dhubs.com/siegen/hubs/marius/

Skype nickname: “railes123”

Note: I speak english and german fluently.

Hope to hear from you,

Marius

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I See. Well, I’ve check a little around, and it seems that Filaflex is the best option for you, amongst the 4 main brands of flexible filament for 3d printer, according to here: http://makezine.com/projects/make-42/fun-with-flexibles/

But fore sure it is nowhere really close to the real stuff, I suppose. Anyway, if it work, then it is a great idea.

Just for you to know, there are other special filaments that would totaly or partially dissolve in water and could produce melting to foamy materials. These have some elasticity but it is nowhere close to filaflex, despite the fact that they could provide a touch sensation quite interesting, especially when not dry yet. These filaments are made of PVA totally or partialy.

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Btw, You could print in flex, then try experimenting above 120°c, but using another liquid than water, that can sustain higher temperatures without boiling. Oil maybe. If assume that with higher temerature, the flex printed stuff would have increased stretching properties (while progressively losing shape memory)

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Polymaker has a flex filament: Polyflex. No experience with this material yet. They recently opened a European centre in Netherlands

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Would love to see the end result, it would be nice to share it when ready, @Marijnw! Cheers

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Hi,

besides our 3D Hubs activities we are reconstructing and printing anatomic structures such as bones, hearts and vessels based on CT and MRT scans. For arteries and other soft tissues we are using an Objet Printer (Polyjet-technology) with a rubber-like-material (called Tango+). The material mimics the human artery-tissue in a very high level. We had the posibility to compare our printed objects with vessels and heart-tissue from a cadaver.

We can handover the material-datasheet - just contact us (3DHubs: CustomX; info@mmm-3d.de)

For more informations and some pics go to www.mmm-3d.de

Hope we could help you :wink:

CustomX-Team

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Hey @Marijnw I think these guys are the guys you are looking for :-)))))

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Hey there,
Thanks for the response, I’ve sent an email :wink:

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Yes indeed, glad to have encountered them, and al the other positive responses here at 3D Hubs!

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Hello, I am also in a similar project and I would really appreciate the information about the 3D printable material which can use for an artery (in my case: left coronary artery). I am specially concerned about the density, Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio of the material.

Thank you in advance and I have sent you an email as well!