Predicting Cell Stress and Strain during Extrusion Bioprinting

Bioprinting of living cells can cause major shape deformations, which may severely affect cell survival and functionality. While the shear stresses occurring during flow through printer nozzle have been quantified to some extent, extensional as leave into free printing strand mostly ignored. Here we use lattice Boltzmann simulations together with a finite-element based model study deformation inside at its exit. Our simulation results are in good qualitative agreement experimental microscopy images. We show that, for flowing center nozzle, be significant while, off-center, their is dominated by nozzle. From these simulations, develop two simple methods that only require parameters (nozzle diameter, rate, bioink rheology) (i) accurately predict maximum stress three-dimensional bioprinting process (ii) approximately strains caused elongational