Manufacturing of Stereolithography Enabled Soft Tools for Point of Care Micromixing and Sensing Chambers for Underwater Vehicles

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the applications and practices that Stereolithography enables for an enhanced manufacturing process of a nitrate assay chamber for an underwater Point of Care device. Features such as engraved identifiers, creating post for inlet/outlet connections, embedding electromechanical components and optimizing the spatial distribution, were tested as a case of study for an underwater vehicle component. This study is a first approach in proposing a framework for manufacturing practices toward a new generation of customized devices for the application. The case study is validated using Computational Fluid Dynamics for the design and manufacture of an array of micromixing enhanced nitrite assay sensors that employ and exploits the enabling technology of stereolithography.