In recent years, health monitoring systems (HMS) have aroused great interest due to their broad prospects in preventive medicine. As an important component of HMS, flexible force sensors (FFS) with high flexibility and stretch-ability can monitor vital health parameters and detect physical movements. In this review, the novel materials, the advanced additive manufacturing technologies, the selective sensing mechanisms and typical applications in both wearable and implantable HMS are discussed. We recognized that the next generation of the FFS will have higher sensitivity, wider linear range as well as better durability, self-power supplied and multifunctional integrated. In conclusion, the FFS will provide powerful socioeconomic benefits and improve people's quality of life in the future.

Among the various scaffold design methods, function-based modeling is of great interest due to its accurate controllability for designing pore architectures. Parameters such as the pore size, pore shape, porosity and channel interconnectivity should be designed according to actual skeleton characteristics. To this, an effective modeling method of trabecular bone is proposed, combining triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) and fractal geometry. First, the surface morphology of real trabecular bone is obtained based on binary processing of computed tomography (CT) images. Then, the fractal pore-making element using TPMS is built and constructed into a complex porous structure. Finally, the customized scaffold model is manufactured with an additive manufacturing (AM) method.

Using the 3D printed mold-removal method to fabricate microchannel has become a promising alternative to the conventional soft lithography technique, due to the convenience in printing channel mold and the compatibility with PDMS material. Although having great potential, the use of single filament extruded by fused deposition modeling (FDM) as the sacrificial channel mold has not been elaborately studied. In this paper, we demonstrate the fabrication of microchannels with different structure and size by controllably extruding the sacrificial channel molds. The influences of the main processing parameters including working distance, extrusion amount and printing speed on the printed microchannels are systematically investigated. The results show that, the circular and low-aspect-ratio straight microchannels with different sizes can be fabricated by adjusting the extrusion amounts. The sinusoidal, 3D curved and cross-linked curved microchannels along straight path can be fabricated, either independently or in combination, by the combined control of the working distance, extrusion amount and printing speed. The complex microchannels with different structural features can also be printed along curved serpentine, rectangular serpentine, and spiral paths. This paper presents a simple and powerful method to fabricate the complex microchannels with different structure and size by just controlling the processing parameters for extruding channel molds.

Implant parts prepared by traditional design and manufacturing methods generally have problems of high stiffness and heavy self‐weight, which may cause stress shielding effect between the implanted part and the host bone, and eventually cause loosening of the implanted part. Based on the implicit surface function equations, several porous implant models with controlled pore structure were designed. By adjusting the parameters, the apparent elastic modulus of the porous implant model can be regulated. The biomechanical simulation experiment was performed using CAE software to simulate the stress and elastic modulus of the designed models. The experimental results show that the apparent elastic modulus of the porous structure scaffold is close to that of the bone tissue, which can effectively reduce the stress shielding effect. In addition, the osseointegration status between the implant and the host bone was analyzed by implant experiment. The pushout test results show that the designed porous structures have a good osseointegration effect.

Three-dimensional bioprinting has emerged as one of the manufacturing approaches that could potentially fabricate vascularized channels, which is helpful to culture tissues in vitro. In this paper, we report a novel approach to fabricate 3D perfusable channels by using the combination of extrusion and inkjet techniques in an integrated manufacture process. To achieve this, firstly we investigate the theoretical model to analyze influencing factors of structural dimensions of the printed parts like the printing speed, pressure, dispensing time, and voltage. In the experiment, photocurable hydrogel was printed to form a self-supporting structure with internal channel grooves. When the desired height of hydrogel was reached, the dual print-head was switched to the piezoelectric nozzle immediately, and the sacrificial material was printed by the changed nozzle on the printed hydrogel layer. Then, the extrusion nozzle was switched to print the next hydrogel layer. Once the printing of the internal construct was finished, hydrogel was extruded to wrap the entire structure, and the construct was immersed in a CaCl₂ solution to crosslink. After that, the channel was formed by removing the sacrificial material. This approach can potentially provide a strategy for fabricating 3D vascularized channels and advance the development of culturing thick tissues in vitro.