Artery vessel fabrication using the combined fused deposition modeling and electrospinning techniques

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to prepare a new combined method of rapid prototyping, fused deposition modeling (FDM) and electrospinning for the fabrication of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). Design/methodology/approach - A dynamically optimum design of blood vessel graft was constructed using FDM and electrospinning. Fabrication of 3-D CABG model was constructed using pro-engineer based on the optimum hemodynamic analysis and was converted to an stereolithography file format which was imported to the Magic software where it was edited to a high-resolution contour. The model was then created from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene which was used as a collector for electrospinning fabrication. For the electrospinning thermoplastic polyurethane was dissolved with hexafluoroisopropanol. The voltage applied for electrospinning was 15 kV where the solid FDM model was used to collect nanofibers at fixed distance. Findings - The properties of the fabricated vessel agreed well with those of human artery. The proposed method can be effectively used for the fabrication of an optimized graft design. This proposed method has been proved as a promising fabrication processes in fabricating a specially designed graft with the correct physical and mechanical properties. Originality/value - The proposed method is novel and combines the advantages of both FDM and electrospinning techniques.