Abstract
Friction is a genuine issue in the use of many medical devices involving rubbery materials such as plungers in medical syringes. This paper presents a new direction for the reduction of friction in medical syringes based on surface texturing of the rubber plunger. The specimens were prepared by casting poly(vinylsiloxane) (PVS) rubber into a pre-fabricated negative template obtained by 3D printing. Friction tests were performed on a home-made test-rig. It was clearly shown that friction resistance can be considerably manipulated when using textured plungers.
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Acknowledgements
The negative templates for the casting of textured plungers were prepared at the Center for Functional and 3D Printing, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The experimental test-rig was funded by Maof Fellowships, the Council for Higher Education of Israel (Dr. H. Kasem), and the MIA program the Ministry of Science, Technology & Space (Prof. A. Domb).
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Haytam KASEM. He received his M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Haute Alsace in Mulhouse, France, in 2004. He received his PhD degree in tribology of composite materials from the University of Orleans, France, in 2008. He joined the Tribology Laboratory at Technion, Israel, in 2012 and the Azrieli College of Engineering in Jerusalem, Israel, in 2013. His current position is an assistant professor. His research areas cover the tribology of bionic microstructures, biotribology, mechano-chemical surface treatment and tribology of friction brakes.
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Kasem, H., Shriki, H., Ganon, L. et al. Rubber plunger surface texturing for friction reduction in medical syringes. Friction 7, 351–358 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-018-0227-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-018-0227-5