Medical Plastics: Understanding Ultrasonic Welding, Part 1

Plastic consumables for medical applications are often very complex and sophisticated devices. Before these devices can be used by healthcare workers or home care patients, they...

DIY Kits Enable Users to Build Their Own Peristaltic Pumps for Microfluidics

Users can download the design files to 3D print and assemble a customizable peristaltic pump.

Establishing Proper Validation of Extruded Silicone Tubing

Bring your project from the process development phase of manufacturing to a fully validated one.

Biomedical Balloons: Understanding Their Physical and Mechanical Properties

Learn about the different material options for balloon catheters.

Advanced Extrusion Techniques: How Engineered Extrusion Helps Medical Device Makers Improve Device Designs and Patient Experiences

Advances in hose and tubing manufacturing techniques are supporting new miniaturized devices and wearables.

The Benefits of Embedding Marker Bands vs. Swaging

Advancements have enabled marker bands to be applied more safely and consistently.

Options for Reducing Friction When Using Silicone Elastomers

Silicone has a long and proven history of use with medical devices and can provide many benefits, from flexibility to cushioning. When working with some medical devices, however,...

Reducing Risk with Geometric Transition Extrusion

In an effort to design smaller, more intricate and complicated medical devices without running afoul of increasingly stringent national and international regulations, many designers are...

Getting the Most from Your Extrusion Tooling

By utilizing state-of-the-art production equipment and processes, machining tolerances are held extremely close on today's multi-lumen and multilayer medical tubing. It is important to note that...

Two-Component Molding Can Solve Medical Design Challenges and Reduce Costs

Device manufacturers count on their supply chain partners for answers. What can be adjusted, how can we add value, and what methods can be used to streamline...

Microextrusion Tubing Advances Help Push Medical Device Boundaries

Over the past five years, technological advances have enabled product applications for microextrusion to penetrate into the medical OEM arena. Simply speaking, micro now...

A Multilayered Approach to Extruded Tubing

Along with cost savings, coextrusion technology offers improved functionality in new tubing products. This article explores how this micro-dimensional tubing is currently being used to meet...

Reinforced Silicone Tube Options for Kink, Wear, or Burst Resistance

Its biocompatibility, flexibility, and durability have made extruded silicone the top choice for tubing in many medical devices. Of course, designing devices that...

Maintaining Quality and Efficiency of Extrusion Tooling

Today's machining tolerances are held extremely close on multilumen and multi-layer medical tubing through the use of state-of-the-art production equipment and processes. Any...

Computational Fluid Dynamics in Extrusion Tooling

Applying fluid dynamic principles to extrusion tooling design benefits any medical device company involved with continuous extrusion. Benefits include improved product tolerances, reduced...

Silicone Pump Segments for Medication and Feeding Pumps

They are vitally important, make therapy possible, and they have become an integral part in hospitals or home-care settings: medication and feeding pumps supply patients with essential...

Avoiding Pitfalls in Development of Advanced Custom Extrusions

The custom medical extrusion industry is growing in all directions. The push to be minimally invasive is pushing devices to be smaller and smaller. Cutting-edge raw materials are...

Intelligent Tubing for Bioresorbable Scaffolds

Bioresorbable stent scaffolds are balloon-expandable and have been used to replace metallic stents to treat the narrowing of arteries and airway passages. Like traditional metallic scaffolds,...

Top 5 Concerns When Selecting a Custom Extruder

Finding the right custom extrusion and plastics company to manufacture and provide a key custom component to your end-product needs can often seem a daunting task. With an abundance of...

Medical Device Manufacturers Are Relying More on Innovation Brought to Their Doors

Budget cutbacks due to healthcare reform, hospital pricing pressures, and changes to reimbursement are limiting money funneling into the medical device...

Material Selection in a Complex Regulatory Environment

Understanding material selection trends and complying with the needs of governing regulatory agencies is fundamental to success in medical device production. As manufacturers set...

Micromolding Is Shaping the Future of Drug Delivery

An important movement within the medical device industry is poised to revolutionize the point-of-care (POC) drug delivery market. The goal at hand—making drug delivery devices more...

Creating a Technically Advanced Medical Tube: An Independent Extruder’s Perspective

With catheters and medical devices becoming increasingly advanced and specialized, so has the process of creating that device. With complex designs, or...

Non-Contact, Light-Based Measurements for Medical Balloons and Catheters

One of the most prevalent measurement devices in a medical balloon or catheter manufacturing facility is the micrometer gauge. It is simple and inexpensive. But, this...

Novel Polymer Technology Bids Farewell to Tri-layer

Modern medicine has come a long way from the reed catheters of ancient Syria or the metal tubes of Benjamin Franklin’s time. As doctors discover more and more ways to utilize minimally...

Lowering the Costs of Organ Cell Printing

A specialized 3D printing extruder developed by a sophomore and collaborator at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) could lower the costs of printing cellular structures for use in drug...

Automatic Concentricity Adjustment System for Medical Tubing

Stringent product quality and process capability requirements confront producers of precision medical tubing used in medical device applications. This includes final tubing...