Honors College Theses

Publication Date

4-4-2022

Major

Mechanical Engineering (B.S.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Faculty Mentor

Dr. Jinki Kim

Abstract

Bioprinting is a new method that utilizes additive manufacturing to construct organs, tissues, and other biostructures. This method presents endless possibilities - less reliance on organ donors (according to the Health Resources and Services Administration, 17 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant in the U.S.), more transplant opportunities, and the ability to save significantly more lives. While bioprinting has opened a new frontier in the biomedical field, there may be some research issues that need to be addressed. For example, numerous researchers have focused on creating novel approaches to print complicated geometries. However, the structural integrity or reliability in these printed structures are not what they could be. There has been research aimed toward assessing the structural integrity of these printed materials, yet it is generally focused on destructive approaches and may require contact-based methods that interfere with the manufacturing process and its quality. Recent research utilizing laser-based approaches provide non-contact measurements with high reliability. However, these may not work for translucent materials that are often found in biomaterials and cannot view the entire specimen. This research proposes a novel approach that can advance the state-of-the-art by non-contact and entire structure analysis. The new idea is to assess the structural integrity of the bioprinted materials during manufacture. Utilizing video-based vibrometry for analyzing vibration characteristics, defects in the printed structure are experimentally monitored, which provides good quantitative agreement with numerical investigation results. With this method, the structural integrity of the bioprinted organs could be verified effectively, showcasing the significant potential of bioprinting to ultimately save more lives.

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