Assessment of a Flow-Measurement Technique for the Printability of Extrusion-Based Bioprinting

Extrusion-based 3D bioprinting is a common application in tissue engineering used to fabricate porous and complex scaffolds for tissue regeneration and repair. Flow-rate measurement can improve printability and reduce the trial-and-error steps needed to optimize printing parameters. This study develops a novel system for flow-rate measurement of chitosan solution based on particle image velocimetry (PIV). The results obtained using PIV are compared with the results obtained using an existing predictive model. In addition, results are double-checked using precision scales to demonstrate the robustness of the PIV method. The experimental results fit the exponential function of the mathematical model (adjusted R-squared = 0.999), and the measured errors of PIV compared to those of the precision scale were within 3%.