Electrospinning Process Simulation for the Application in Predictive Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

The aim of this research was to simulate two-phase electrospinning jet from the syringe nozzle to the collector by using computational methods. Previous numerical studies have dealt only with one-phase flows or had too many simplifications when it comes to electrospinning process [1]. Since the application of electrospinning lies in manufacturing of cardiovascular implants (to allow and promote cell infiltration within the scaffolds),as well as in fiber modification methods for improving myocardial regeneration (various biodegradable polymers can be used for fiber fabrication) [2],these kind of simulations can offer a full insight into coupled physical laws that govern the process. This will be useful for optimization of the electrospinning parameters reducing the trial-and-error approach,decreasing the amount of chemicals,reducing waste management and equipment maintenance costs. Data obtained during experiments with 10wt% PVA solution were used as input for computational simulation. Three voltage pairs (15kV applied on the nozzle,0kV on the collector; 13kV applied on the nozzle,-2kV on the collector; 20kV applied on the nozzle,0kV on the collector) were investigated in order to examine their effect on jet shape and implicitly fiber structure. A two-phase flow model is simulated using turbulent k-? model,volume of fluids (VOF) for the interphase region between the polymer and air and Magnetohydrodynamics(MHD) model for the behavior of the polymer in strong electric field. The simulation results show good agreement with experiments in terms of outcome - no fiber differences in experiments were present when proposed voltage pairs were used as boundary conditions,and similar jet shapes were obtained during simulations. These jet shapes for electrospinning are also visually very different from jet shapes when non-optimal parameters are used. This confirms the hypothesis that the jet shape during electrospinning can be a factor of indication whether the chosen electrospinning parameters would result in fibers with good quality. Differences that may occur between experiments and simulation can be a result of simplifications in simulations; influence of uniform and non-uniform electric field,as well as adopted parameters that were used based on literature values and could not be determined experimentally at this point.