Masked stereolithography as an accessible additive manufacturing technology to fabricate soft polymeric flow phantoms

¹ Centre for Materials Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa
² Centre for Computational and Applied Mechanics, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa

^* Corresponding author: james.dicks@uct.ac.za

Abstract

The development of fabricating in vitro flow phantoms to study biomedical fluid dynamics using laser particle image velocimetry provides a basis for better understanding and treatment of medical conditions such as aneurysms and cardiovascular disease. Additionally, the ability to fabricate patient-specific models rapidly and reliably is of interest for both bespoke therapeutic capabilities and computational modelling. Additive manufacturing (AM) presents a method for rapid and facile direct fabrication with the capability for excellent geometric and resolution fidelity that can overcome the shortcomings of traditional casting techniques. Furthermore, masked stereolithography (mSLA) presents itself as an accessible and versatile AM technology with the potential to overcome limitations seen for other AM technologies. As such, this study aimed to demonstrate mSLA as an accessible and effective AM technology for the fabrication of mechanically tailorable soft polymers for flow phantom applications.