Medical materials company Tekni-Plex will present a paper on Improving Tolerance During Manufacturing: Polymer Mandrels Applications for Interventional Catheter Development at this year’s MD&M West show.
It will be presented by the company’s senior director of medical components Dan Lazas on Tuesday 5th February. He will cover topics that include mandrel application, selection and design for manufacturability – offering insight on mandrels that are commonly used in the manufacturing of endovascular catheters to retain inside diameter dimensions and tolerances.
The use of polymer mandrels has proliferated in recent years due to the increase in cardiovascular and neurovascular guide catheter innovations and demand for thin wall, tight tolerance designs. The most common application for polymer mandrels is the production of braid reinforced catheter shafts. These mandrels maintain inside diameter shapes and tolerances during extrusion of the thermoplastic inner layer, stainless steel braided middle, reinforcing layer, and extruded thermoplastic overcoat. Such constructions are common for cardiovascular diagnostic catheters.
Polymer mandrels are also used to produce thin wall tubing with tight tolerances that cannot otherwise be produced using free-extrusion. For example, polymer marker bands used on balloon catheters are cut from thin wall polymer tubing with high loadings of tungsten filler to enhance visibility under fluoroscopy.
MD&M West will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California from 5-7 February.