Which printer for printing simulated arteries for radio particle tracing

[Seth8530]

So, I am sure that this thread has been seen by many of you very many times. However, I am trying to put a new spin on the whole new guy just joined our forum and has no idea what anything is kind of thread. So, to give you an idea of what I do and am.. I am a graduate student at a university and we develop methods to track small radioactive particles in fluid flows. Thus, giving us an idea of what the flow structure is like, the flow rate and many other interesting things. So, for us, it would be really cool if we could 3d print out interesting objects and analyze how fluid flow flows around or inside of them.

One of the things we are looking into doing is seeing if we can track the particles inside of a simulated human artery and thus possibly identify blockages and the such. Or perhaps, we could design a fluid mixer in CAD and then print it out and see how well it works. So, this brings me to my question. I need a 3d printer which can print out small, but realistic sections of simulated arteries, some of which can have blockages modeled inside of them. The artery needs to be durable and not leak. Ideally, we would need to be able to 3d print threads on the ends of the arteries for hooking up small pipes or tubes onto them for the simulated blood flow.

Is this doable with 3d printing? If so, what kind of printer should I be looking at? What kind of information could I provide you that would help you help me out?

Thanks!

[curious aardvark]

It's doable, not sure it's doable with a cheapish desktop machine.
You're going to need some very small tubes and make them watertight.

An industrial sintered powder nylon machine might do it.

You might also be able to do it with one of the hi-resolution sla resin machine aimed at the jewellery industry.

what sort of diameter tubes were you thinking off ? and in what size block of material ?

Also it might be worth trying a sample print from someone like shapeways who use sintered nylon machines.

[Seth8530]

I am thinking on the order of around 4 mm in diameter and up. What do you mean by what size block of material?